True to form, a few days before Christmas, Sweetie and I were still a present or two short. Our girls were covered, but we needed another one for our 11-year-old video game expert. “No problem,” I told Sweetie. “I’ll pick up an Xbox game from the Company Store.”

Over at the Store, the shelves were clean. “What’s going on?” I asked the clerk.
“No more Xbox sports games from Microsoft,” she said.
“What happened?”
“Long story, but it boils down to Microsoft announcing that we wouldn’t compete in the sports games market anymore. This happened back in March. Since then, we’ve just been selling our inventory, and now that’s gone. Do you have ‘Halo 2′ or ‘MechAssault’? We’re still making those.”
“No, I don’t. This is for my 11-year-old and I’d rather not have him getting used to shooting people in the face.”
“I see. Well, sorry.”

I don’t play Xbox myself. I believe a grown man playing video games is juvenile and shows misplaced priorities. Also, I rot like a melon in the Mojave. Apparently, razor sharp skills on “Space Invaders,” circa 1979, do not transfer well to “NBA Inside Drive,” circa 2004.

On the way home, the local sports station featured a discussion on the business of sports video games. It seems that EA Sports recently paid $300 million (that’s a 3 with 47 zeroes after it) for exclusive rights to use NFL team names and player names in their video games over the next five years. That’s exclusive rights. As in, no one else can use them. That means if Microsoft wanted to produce its “NFL Fever” game, it would have to use fictitious names for teams and players. “Hey fans! It’s time for the Minnesota Invaders to take on the Chicago Fighting Squirrels!” Just doesn’t have the same ring to it. But that’s only the NFL, right? I mean, the EA Sports deal doesn’t prevent Microsoft or any other manufacturer from marketing games for the NBA or MLB or even college football. So what’s the problem?

Here’s the problem. Pro football anchors the video game market, meaning that all other sports games feed off of the NFL. It’s sort of like a so-so TV show that has “Seinfeld” as a lead-in. You grab customers with your kick-butt NFL game, and they’ll also hang around to buy your so-so games for other sports. Judging from sales and from popular consensus, the best NFL game around is EA Sports “Madden,” named after the much-loved former coach and current play-by-play announcer/ACE hardware spokesman/aviophobiac. For years, “Madden” has sacked the competition, outselling some competitors ten to one. That’s what’s known as mindshare. If you’re going to buy an NFL game, you must buy “Madden.”

This year, another game maker decided enough was enough. Sega, who you’ll remember dropped out of the game box race, teamed up with Take-Two and ESPN to produce something called “ESPN NFL 2K5.”

“Great game,” some said.
“Better than ‘Madden,’” others chimed in.

The kicker? It sold for 20 bucks, about half of what “Madden” cost, and people started buying the ESPN game in droves. EA Sports countered by cutting the “Madden” price tag to $20. By Thanksgiving, “Madden” was still out-selling “NFL 2K5,” but only by a margin of less than two to one. In other words, “Madden” beat out the New York Yankees for the honor of the year’s most monumental collapse. Profits dropped. EA Sports execs who had planned to buy that condo in Vail with their Christmas bonus found that they could barely afford the lift tickets. So they decided it was time to roll out the Enola Gay. EA Sports met with the director of the NFL Players Association, Gene Upshaw, who was one of the best linemen ever to play the game, but has never been mistaken for Alan Greenspan when it comes to negotiations. EA Sports said, “We’ll give you 300 million.” Upshaw said, “You mean ‘dollars’?” And the deal was done. EA Sports stock went up, and its execs enjoyed a happy Christmas after all.

So this is what it’s come to. EA Sports, already the biggest game manufacturer, now has an exclusive contract with the NFL, the cornerstone of all console sports games. What’s to stop them from hiking the price of “Madden 2006″ back up to $50, or $60, or more? We’ve shown that we’ll pay it. The game industry is an $8 billion business today and is growing by more than 10 percent a year.

Defeated, I went to a retail store and grabbed a copy of “Madden 2005″ off the shelf, but, for the love of Peyton Manning, I just couldn’t bring myself to buy it–half-price or not. I put it down, then walked across the aisle and picked up a real leather football (genuine size and weight), and my son and I passed it around in the back yard all Christmas afternoon. It was a small, but satisfying, victory.