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2K Sports tells MLB 2K games 'you're out,' report says

Despite canceling the baseball series, Take-Two Interactive's sports-focused development house will continue to produce NBA 2K titles.

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Don Reisinger
Former CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
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Don Reisinger
2K Sports

Take-Two Interactive's 2K Sports has decided to put an end to its Major League Baseball (MLB) relationship.

Gaming site Polygon reported on Monday that 2K Sports was thinking about getting out of the MLB business and was able to confirm the news last night. In a statement, a representative from 2K Sports said that the company has "decided not to renew our MLB 2K series for 2014." The representative went on to reassure fans that the NBA 2K franchise, which is the top-selling basketball franchise in the industry, will live on.

Although 2K Sports has set itself apart on basketball, its baseball title was always an also-ran behind Sony's MLB The Show franchise. That 2K is getting away from its baseball game is no surprise.

The news is very bad news for Xbox owners, however. With 2K Sports now out of the picture, Sony is the only publisher licensing access to MLB teams and players. That means Xbox 360 and Xbox One owners will not have a true baseball simulation to play, as of this writing. It's not clear whether other developers will jump to get the MLB licensing deal.

In addition to ending its relationship with MLB, 2K Sports has taken all mention of the MLB 2K down from its site and has scrubbed the Web clean of its Facebook page. MLB 2K games are also no longer available on digital shops, like Steam and the Xbox Games Store.