6 Sports With No Good Video Game In Years

The sports genre is one of gaming’s most popular in terms of participation, only really rivalled by first person shooter bigshots such as the Call of Duty franchise. Games such as FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer in the UK and Madden in the USA dominate the bestseller charts throughout the year and indeed the only games that many casual console owners actually buy are the annual simulations of their favourite sport.

EA rule the roost with the aforementioned FIFA and Madden series, as well as their annual National Hockey League (NHL) and occasional Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) releases. Elsewhere, 2k Sports hold the licences for the National Basketball Association (NBA) and WWE wrestling, Sony have been exclusively making Major League Baseball (MLB) games for more than 20 years, Codemasters appeal to petrolheads with their Formula One releases and Big Ant have been quietly releasing solid cricketing games.

Aside from these mostly American-dominated sports, however, the market is somewhat lacking. Several other hugely popular physical activities from around the world are missing in action in the gaming world, with only the occasional title every few years if at all. To make matters worse, these are often terrible.

Here are six sports that deserve better on the Playstations and Xboxes of the world.

Tennis is estimated to be the fourth most popular sport in the world, with more than 1 billion of the planet’s 7.5 billion inhabitants following or participating in it on a regular basis. With its fast-paced television-friendly action, gender inclusivity (the men’s and women’s games are treated as equally important, at least at the 4 Major tournaments) and cast of long-beloved players such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams, it certainly appeals on a lot of levels.

There have actually been some fantastic tennis games over the years, even excluding arcade takes on the sport such as Wii Sports or the Mario Tennis franchise. For many years, Sega’s Virtua Tennis was a semi-regular fixture in consoles and arcades, mixing serious tennis simulation with fun minigames to create a hugely enjoyable experience. There hasn’t been a release in the series since Virtua Tennis 4 in 2011, however.

2k’s Top Spin Tennis went AWOL after a poorly received fourth adaptation in 2011 also, whilst EA’s short-lived attempt at capitalising on the sport, Grand Slam Tennis, petered out in 2012.

In the seven years since, there has been a gap in the market that has nobody has seen fit to capitalise on. A huge shame given how multiplayer friendly manic doubles games are.