EA delays NBA Elite 11, announces NBA Jam for PS3, Xbox 360 @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on September 27, 2010

News: EA doesn't really know the meaning of the word "exclusive", do they?

EA Sports' upcoming NBA basketball reboot, NBA Elite 11, will miss its October 5th release date. The news was delivered by a post on Peter Moore's Blog and the executive has offered several olive branches to gamers sad about the delay.

The big news is that EA plans to release a standalone version of NBA Jam for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It's currently unknown if this version of the game will be an Xbox Live Arcade/PlayStation Network release or if it'll be a full retail game. Either way, EA has promised it'll be out by Christmas. There was no mention of the fate of the stripped down version of Jam that EA had planned to include with NBA Elite 11.

In addition to giving some basketball to PS3 and Xbox 360 owners this year, the publisher also plans to reward NBA Live 10 with free content and roster fixes throughout the 2010-2011 NBA season. The first of these updates will include a complete roster overhaul that will update NBA Live 10 for the 2010-2011 season.

Moore didn't comment on why he was waiting until a week before the game's launch to announce a delay, but it seems that the game just wasn't ready for primetime. He said "NBA Elite had the benefit of play-testing, a demo and a lot of our own research. All that feedback revealed some concerns about gameplay polish, so we've listened to your feedback, and made a judgment that the game would benefit from more time in development." No new release date was given, but with a promise of new DLC throughout the entire NBA season, it might be playoff time before players get their hands on the next basketball game from EA Sports.

We'll have more soon.