Every year, lovers of video games can play simulations of Football, basket and even golf. The return of the Top Spin franchise for the yellow ball, thirteen years later Top Spin 4, will he give ideas to create a game on the paddle ?

The month of September reminds that it is back to school for the students and the return of sports games as EA Sports F.C. et NBA 2K. For fans of Football and basket, the meeting is expected with impatience. Just like the games of motor sports which offer a new opus every year: F1, MotoGP, EA Sports WRC.

On the other hand, when we look at the other team sports, they are not much represented. The last game of handball dates back to 2020 with handball 21. For rugby, there was Rugby 22 with a rating of 59/100 for journalists and 6,2/10 according to players on Metacritic.

13 years of waiting for a new tennis game

About the racket sports, especially the tennis, in the 2000s, we were treated to several simulation-oriented episodes with Top Spin and rather with a arcade gameplay with the license Virtua Tennis. The last Top Spin date of April 2024, under the name of Top Spin 2k25. We had to wait 13 years after the last opus released in 2011. In terms of notes, we find a score of 76/100 according to the reviews of journalists and 4,9/10 for players on Metacritic.

The return of the game was appreciated despite graphics quite old, the lack of athletes present in the game but with a gameplay fluid and pleasant controllers in hand. This if long wait explained by the sales figures of Top Spin 4, which had sold to 1,4 million copies. In parallel, since its creation, the license FIFAbecome EA Sports F.C. has sold 325 million games. As for NBA 2K, that's almost 150 million. Top Spin really doesn't play in the same division as its competitors.

Ping-pong has been waiting for a game since 2006

For the ping-pong, the American publisher Rockstar, known worldwide for its open world games with GTA, had proposed a game of table tennis released in 2006. And since then, nothing more to put under the tooth. The effect Olympics 2024 and its sold-out matches, added to this news generation of table tennis players embodied by the Lebrun brothers, could perhaps give back to the studios of video games to create a new simulation of ping-pong.

The dizzying evolution of the number of padel practitioners shows all the potential to offer a virtual version of this sport. Because it has become the racket sport most practiced in Argentina and Spain. In France, in 2024, the FFT records an increase of 5,62% of licensees compared to last year and 11,07% compared to the 2022 season (at the same date). Among the total number of licenses, there are 1 licenses multi-racket and 65 licenses Padel (91% increase compared to last year). 

Nintendo Switch 2 Released

With the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 planned for 2025, unveil a friendly sports game such as paddle, playable at four, as at the time of the release of the Wii in 2006, seems feasible. We remember the tennis games thanks to the controllers that recognize the movements players.
Video games are omnipresent in leisure activities. Because according to the SELL (Union of Leisure Software Publishers), 38,3 million French people 10 years and older play video games, at least occasionally, either 70% of the population.

Obviously in this article, we are not talking about mobile video games or even possible 90s games…

Henri Pasquet

Passionate about football and tennis, I have been playing ping-pong for three years. More recently, I discovered padel and what a thrill! Basketball, rugby, golf and rally: more new sports that I follow regularly. Otherwise on the cultural side, since I love giving my opinion, I write reviews of films and video games.

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