2K Sports does basketball games better than anyone else out there.  Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the only thing they excel at.  Their status as the exclusive third-party MLB publisher has yielded a string of mediocre baseball games that have been consistently outshined by Sony’s The Show series, and with EA’s exclusive NFL contract, they aren’t allowed to make football games.  That leaves only their hockey franchise, the NHL 2K series, which has been consistently outsold and out-reviewed by EA’s excellent NHL games.  Next year, this won’t be an issue, as 2K will not be making an NHL 2K11.

Yesterday, gaming site Pastapadre noticed that Take Two’s most recent quarterly report didn’t include a listing for NHL 2K11 in the section that shows upcoming games for the year.  The Sporting News’ Chris Littman contacted Take Two, and was told, “We are currently in the process of evaluating our sports portfolio and have not announced any new NHL titles at this time.”

Take-Two’s Strauss Zelnick has made statements that essentially amount to “we’re only doing surefire, AAA titles from now on,” and with NHL 2K’s lower profile and relative lack of success, its ouster is understandable.  Take-Two expects to lose $137.9 million this year, with many blaming the poor sales of MLB 2K10 for the poor financial outlook.  It’s hard to imagine Take-Two continuing to lose money with their failing MLB franchise, meaning that 2K Sports may soon be reduced to a basketball-only brand (sorry, tennis doesn’t count.)  At that point, do we call them “2K Sport?”