September 22, 2008: 2K Sports today announced details on Living Rosters, an exciting new innovative online feature for this season's highly anticipated basketball title, NBA 2K9. Living Rosters will ensure dedicated fans are playing with the most up-to-date and complete basketball experience ever available in the NBA 2K franchise. In addition to delivering constant updates to player ratings and player tendencies, Living Rosters will also offer exclusive access to unlockable animation packages for players in the game. When a player starts to heat up and takes his game to the next level on the real courts, new animation packages will unlock for that player in the video game. As the NBA season progresses, so will NBA 2K9, as players will have the ability to pull off new moves never seen before in the video game, adapt their offensive and defensive rotations, and shift starting lineups as they occur. If it happens during the regular NBA season, it will happen in NBA 2K9 thanks to Living Rosters.
When the Living Rosters feature is activated and a gamer signs in online, the game automatically checks for Living Roster updates in order to download the latest real-life player information in a seamless process behind the scenes. Gamers will have an option to either have Living Rosters automatically update their in-game roster information, or they can choose to download new roster data manually.
Once Living Rosters has successfully completed an update, NBA 2K9 fans can then review the different player and gameplay updates from the NBA 2K Insider, a real person working behind the scenes, pouring over the stats and spreadsheets, and who is ultimately responsible for the content and accuracy of the Living Rosters updates. However, the Insider's job is much more than just crunching numbers - they will interact with the community and listen to roster update suggestions to determine what the fans really want in each update. The NBA 2K Insider's analysis and commentary will be available in-game and on the 2K Sports website, www.2ksports.com
I have to say that this is definitely a pretty cool feature...unless, of course, your team is doing really bad this season...Anyway, would something like this become a standard feature in sports games, it would really force companies to add new and innovative features and modes in order to sell the next game in their franchise. Of course, what will really be interesting is if the Living Rosters are continuously updated after the release of NBA 2K10...
