A post on CVG reports that EA Labels’ president Frank Gibeau told investors during yesterday’s finance call that EA Sports hasn’t given up on the basketball game genre—despite the fact that the last two games EA’s tried to release in the last three years have been scrapped.

Gibeau cited the huge successes of the FIFA and Madden NFL game franchises, saying that they were proof of how “a spectacular core product sets us up for big opportunities with online services,” and that “this year’s NBA Live did not meet that test. We take this situation seriously.”

Gibeau continued:

“EA Sports is committed to basketball, and we will publish a basketball game when we can match the quality of franchises like Madden NFL, NHL Hockey, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and FIFA Soccer.”

When will the next NBA Live come out? You would think that if EA had planned on releasing it next year, they’d have mentioned that in the call…for now, I guess basketball fans are stuck with the NBA 2K series—which, apparently, is pretty darned good.

Via CVG

I hope none of you basketball fans were looking forward to NBA Live 13… because it totally just got cancelled – or at the very least, postponed in its current form until “next year.”

This news comes from a post just moments ago on the EA Sports blog, where Andrew Wilson, executive vice president of EA Sports, noted that the game hasn’t met their “high expectations” yet, and that the decision has been made to “sit out the full year and stay focused on making next year’s game great. ”

This announcement follows the recent delay rumors that surfaced just weeks ago. That’s one heck of a delay, EA.

In a nutshell, the game is not up to the standards set by the squad at EA Sports, and the development team hopes “you’ll agree when you’re able to play the game next year.”

For the full spiel from Wilson, feel free to read his announcement below:

“When we started the process of bringing back NBA LIVE, we knew it was going to be a long journey. We started by moving the game to a new studio. We brought in some of the best new technology that has helped fuel innovation in our other games. We launched an even deeper level of engagement with our community to gather more feedback directly from fans. And we built a whole new development team to bring it all to life. We felt like we were on the right path.

We also made a commitment to deliver a high quality experience — this is what our fans expect and what we demand of ourselves at EA SPORTS. But making great games is not easy, and we’re just not there yet on NBA LIVE 13. Having continued to look at the game over the past few days, it’s clear that we won’t be ready in October. And rather than launch midway through the season, we’re going to sit out the full year and stay focused on making next year’s game great. This decision puts us on the right track for success well into the future in a rapidly changing industry.

I’m disappointed that we have not yet met our high expectations with NBA LIVE, but I remain motivated about where we’re going. We’re committed to delivering new innovation in online, and our progress in the visual presentation of the game continues to take big strides. We also know that a great game starts with great gameplay, and this remains a huge priority for us.

This wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s the right one for our fans. I hope you’ll agree when you’re able to play the game next year.”

[via EA Sports]

Fans of digitized sports may or may not realize that EA hasn’t released a basketball game for quite a while. I wrote about it in the final installment of All Your History: EA Sports, but if missed it, here’s the short version: in 2010, EA Sports issued a last-minute cancelation on NBA Elite 11, the franchise that was to replace their Live franchise with a brand-new game engine. Despite the new engine’s potential, it was full of bugs and problems very close to when the game’s planned launch. After Elite’s demo became a YouTube laughingstock, EA Sports pulled the plug and basically said, “see you in 2012.”

Yet, here we are. EA Sports posted the above trailer for the game—featuring Jeremy Lin in a Rockets jersey and Dwight Howard as a Laker, among others—and it looks as great as a new, high-definition basketball game from EA Sports would. But with the trailer, EA offered up this nugget of news:

“Many fans have been anticipating an early October launch, but our plan is to release at a later date. We will share more information in the future.”

The new season of the NBA starts in the last week of October. How much later are they planning on shipping the game? In an interview with Kotaku from 2010, EA boss John Riccitello explained the rationale behind canceling Elite, and why they didn’t bother releasing it later after more work could be done:

“We could have put the game back in production and showed up back in time for, say, the All-Star Break… but when you look at the data, typically somewhere between 85 and 90% of basketball games ship between launch date and the All-Star game so we would have been competing for, what, half of the last 10%? And the knock-on effect would have been that the team that would otherwise have been working on the following year’s product would have three fewer months to build it.”

So there you go. NBA 2K 13 from 2K Sports hits shelves on October 2—so how many people will wait for EA’s triumphant return to the court? And if they don’t release their game this year, will they really wait until Fall 2013 to come back to basketball?

Troubling times, basketballers. Troubling times indeed.

EA Sports via Joystiq

A post on Gamasutra from yesterday reveals that Electronic Arts is returning to the world of PROFESSIONAL-STYLE-BASKETBALLING with NBA Live 13, a return to the “Live” label after their previous efforts with NBA Elite went down the tubes.

The post notes that EA was looking to release NBA Elite 11, what would’ve been the second game in that franchise, but decided instead to cancel the game despite having manufactured retail copies because the company didn’t want to “ship a product [it wasn’t] proud of and compete for marginal share.” Apparently the game wasn’t very good.

Now, though, EA wants to return to realistic NBA games, having had some pretty good success with NBA Jam not too long ago. It’s likely that they ditched Elite because of whatever taint that brand had.

Interested in a new Live? Or are you going to stick with the 2K franchise? Personally, I’m still crossing my fingers someone will bring the Mutant League franchise back…

Via Gamasutra