Next NBA Live delayed to 2017
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The NBA Live series has struggled to regain its footing since the disaster of a reboot named NBA Elite 11, cancellation of NBA Live 13, and awful NBA Live 14. While the quality of the series has climbed back to being acceptable it simply isn’t even a blip on the radar of consumers. The latest release, NBA Live 16, sold just 8K copies in its first week of release compared to NBA 2K16 which moved well over a million in the same amount of time.
It wasn’t a question of if EA Sports would change their strategy with the basketball series but when. That time appears to be at hand as the company reported fourth quarter 2016 financials and in their presentation listed NBA Live for Q4 2017 release (January-March 2017).
It’s also notable that the game is listed as just NBA Live and not NBA Live 17. This could be the experiment some have been waiting for where a game becomes a service, and potentially even free-to-play. EA’s FTP mobile sports games don’t carry titles with years attached either. Request for comment has been sent in and this article will be updated should one be provided.
[Update] EA Sports has confirmed the delay: “We are committed to NBA LIVE in the console space. While we won’t be shipping a product this Fall, we will be back on the courts with something new and exciting for you to experience in early 2017…Our focus this year is to deliver an amazing, high-quality basketball game to a global audience. The best way to do that is through the fastest growing, largest, and most accessible gaming platform…mobile.”