Your Guide to Video Gaming’s Sportspocalypse 2011

Sportspocalypse. Sportsmageddon. Spörtsnarök? Whatever you want to call it, the coming month is packed with sports video game releases - a seven-way showdown of licensed sports titles in a month that normally sees only two baseball games. How'd we get to this point?

The seven titles here all took different paths for specific reasons even if, in hindsight, a few of them might have wished they picked a different month to hit store shelves. In the current console generation - an era of exclusive licenses and contracted offerings - we haven't seen anything like this.


Last year, October saw five licensed sports releases on a console, but four of them had their dates set by league licensing partners. Only two titles, the baseball releases, are governed by such agreements this month, meaning five elected to compete against them, or join a very crowded field.

Here's a guide to the upcoming month of releases - what's coming to shelves, what they'll offer, how they should do in this battle royale and, importantly, why they're here in the first place. We'll also note if/when a demo is planned, so readers may try before they can buy. Because if one bought all seven, they'd pay more than they would for any console bundle. And the Nintendo 3DS releases in March, too.