There comes a time when you just to say, “You know what? We might want to re-think this.” EA is doing exactly that. With the release of the not-so-much anticipated NBA Elite 11, EA wanted to give us a demo to see what the fuss was all about. Well, that fuss became more fuss after witnessing one of the worst demos ever released. Many publications complained about the glitches and faults about the demo, including us.
With releasing a statement just moments ago, Peter Moore, President of EA Sports, had this to say:
Over the past three years, EA SPORTS development teams have had a laser focus on creating titles packed with innovation and unsurpassed quality. The acclaim from fans and critics on most of our titles the past few years makes us proud and it also motivates us to keep getting better.
This year, we set extremely ambitious goals for our new franchise, NBA ELITE. We are creating a game that will introduce several breakthrough features that have been missing from the basketball genre. Unfortunately, NBA ELITE 11 is not yet ready and we have made a decision to delay next month’s launch. We are going to keep working until we’re certain we can deliver a breakthrough basketball experience.
In the meantime, the NBA season is just around the corner and we have a plan to keep our consumers close to the action:
- NBA JAM will launch on the Wii, as scheduled, on October 5. NBA JAM won recognition this summer as the best sports game at E3 and it’s a blast to play. In addition to the Wii version, we’re going to ship NBA JAM as a standalone product on the Xbox360 and PS3 in time for the holidays. Watch for more news soon on the exact timing of that release.
- For NBA LIVE 10 players, we will continue to offer free content and services throughout the 2010-11 season. We will start with a new roster update so you get all the players for the new season, free of charge. We will also provide free Dynamic DNA updates, daily, for the entire season. That’s a full season of basketball with new rosters and updates, free.
As you can see, EA is finally listening to their fans and feedback, and actually taking it into considering. Not only that, they are not going to release a buggy game with a bunch of patches to try and fix it. To help us get through the NBA season, NBA Live 10 users will still get their content. But here at TGF, we are much happier about another statement. NBA Jam will still come to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 as a stand alone product. Hopefully these are downloadable games, and not a $40 disc-based game. We will keep you updated once we have more news.