NBA Live 17 News Post

NBA Live Committed to Consoles - Shipping in 2017, But the Focus Will Be on Mobile

05:14 PM - May 10, 2016 by RaychelSnr

As we reported on just a bit ago, NBA Live is definitely not coming to consoles this fall -- and may be going through a complete overhaul according to a new message posted by Sean O'Brien on EA's website.

Quote:


	Hey LIVE fans: I want to share some important updates on what�s next for NBA LIVE and give you an overview of where we�re going with the franchise over the course of this year. It�s important that you know that 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. As a team, we�re really excited about taking the franchise to new places with the worldwide release of our mobile game later this year. More details to follow in the coming months! Sean O�Brien Executive Producer, NBA LIVE

Game: NBA Live 17Hype Score: 6.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS4 / Xbox OneVotes for game: 3 - View All

Member Comments

# 61 Crunky @ 05/12/16 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strawberryshortcake


	This is directed to anyone who has any input whatsoever, from anyone please. When people claim developers' hands are tied by suits, what exactly does that truly mean? Aren't the suits only concerned about the bottom line? Does motion capturing running, shooting, rebounding, passing, shot blocking, movement etc styles, during session one on day one at the developer's office change depending on what the suits want? Do suits say you can't motion capture "x" realistically and say you must motion capture it arcadey? Then when it comes to gameplay and player movement and play books and interactions on the floor, how do suits influence these aspects? Do suits say can we make Kobe jump from the three point line and dunk the ball? Where's my half court shots? Facial scans look too realistic, can we make them look more arcadey, please? Are the suits really influencing what happens with gameplay elements? If the suits want highlight dunks, wouldn't the programmers simply program more dunks in the game, but when it comes to motion capturing these dunks, they should still be realistic considering the developers are basically motion capturing a guy dunking the basketball. Some people might consider the "other" basketball game arcade and others consider it simulation. Those considering it arcade may say there's too many dunks. But the way the dunks look still looks realistic. Too many shots going in, even contested, but they still aesthetically looks realistic. Wouldn't the suits take a look at their competitor's numbers and sales figures and say "why can't you guys try to mimic what their doing?" The question is: Is it really the suits influencing what happens in the game or is it the developers just having a difficult time programming what the developers actually want to accomplish in the game? Maybe developers actually want to do something but they simply can't program the game to do what they want. Software programming is suppose to be difficult, right?

You do make a fair point live devs hands aren't tied when it comes to game play, animation quality and motion capture work all this was poorly done. But their hands were tied when it comes to the vision the higher ups wanted directed at consumers. Which is an arcade easy to pick up and play catering to the casual gamer. With the higher ups vision they went away from 2man animations in the paint that resulted in players having having easy access in the paint without restraint from defenders. The players in the game also shot contested jumpers at an alarming rate which screamed unsim, all came from the higher ups vision for the game.

Now let's look at the modes where the live devs have little to no say in the feature set. Live devs were pressured to implement NBA live Ultimate Team due to the success from their other franchises this mode was meant to be the cash cow with microtransations and all to bring money to the company. Then the higher ups came up with the vision let's rival that, and out do the competition at there own game by adding modes like Rising Star that rivaled Mycareer, Proam that rivaled Mypark its not live devs fault the higher ups got cocky and steered them off a cliff. The higher ups should of sat down with live devs back when they released NBA live 14 and told them you know what for this year we gonna be as barebones as we possibly can be and focus only on game play and animation quality from motion capture work, then the following year we can reintroduce all the features back in the game like NHL franchise did. As you can see it was the vision that failed them if they had started out the focus on what really matters most gameplay and animation quality instead of features they wouldn't have ended up in this situation.

# 62 strawberryshortcake @ 05/12/16 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crunky


	You do make a fair point live devs hands aren't tied when it comes to game play, animation quality and motion capture work all this was poorly done. But their hands were tied when it comes to the vision the higher ups wanted directed at consumers. Which is an arcade easy to pick up and play catering to the casual gamer. With the higher ups vision they went away from 2man animations in the paint that resulted in players having having easy access in the paint without restraint from defenders. The players in the game also shot contested jumpers at an alarming rate which screamed unsim, all came from the higher ups vision for the game.

Then the obvious question is, how do you know all of this? How do you know that they in fact wanted an "arcade easy to pick up and play catering to the casual gamer." How do you know about the "2man animation" part? Is this just speculation on your part because that's what the game turned out to be as opposed to the developers couldn't program the game to be in line with their vision to create a respected simulation product?

An easy to pick up and play game doesn't mean how the gameplay is executed needs to be arcadey. At the same time, arcadey doesn't mean something has to look fake. People are graphics whore. Something can look extra real and extremely realistic with the most simplest control scheme catered to casuals or extra hard with the most difficult control scheme ever developed catered to your hardcore gamer.

How do you know the suits wanted the interior defense to be lackadaisical? Honestly as a gamer of the competitor's product, the only major issue I had with NBA Live's 16 demo was the lackadaisical interior paint defense. A couple great things, very realistic things about NBA Live16 was the way steals actually look realistic and the way rebounding actually looks realistic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crunky


	Now let's look at the modes where the live devs have little to no say in the feature set. Live devs were pressured to implement NBA live Ultimate Team due to the success from their other franchises this mode was meant to be the cash cow with microtransations and all to bring money to the company. Then the higher ups came up with the vision let's rival that, and out do the competition at there own game by adding modes like Rising Star that rivaled Mycareer, Proam that rivaled Mypark its not live devs fault the higher ups got cocky and steered them off a cliff. The higher ups should of sat down with live devs back when they released NBA live 14 and told them you know what for this year we gonna be as barebones as we possibly can be and focus only on game play and animation quality from motion capture work, then the following year we can reintroduce all the features back in the game like NHL franchise did. As you can see it was the vision that failed them if they had started out the focus on what really matters most gameplay and animation quality instead of features they wouldn't have ended up in this situation.

Suits-desired features still doesn't dictate what happens with the gameplay component as far as what a pass, a shot, a block, a dunk, the way the player dribbles, the way the players run, player movement, player awareness, etc should be. What difference does it make to how gameplay mechanics are implemented in the game if all the suits wanted were money making features?

Session one of day one at the office for motion captures is not dictated by what features make it into the game. EA's NHL series and Fifa series' gameplay mechanic looks "real" enough. Some might consider certain elements to play arcadey, but overall, both series look real. Each game's respective programmers are able to "program" their game to do what they want. This is why I don't believe the suits caused the potential downfall to NBA Live. I believe it's because the NBA Live team simply can't program the game how they want it to be -- and that's simulation gameplay with casual easy to pick up and play controls. Gran Turismo, Forzas, Skate 1/2/3 are supposedly classified as simulation products more or less and sells pretty well.

# 63 Crunky @ 05/12/16 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strawberryshortcake


	Then the obvious question is, how do you know all of this? How do you know that they in fact wanted an "arcade easy to pick up and play catering to the casual gamer." How do you know about the "2man animation" part? Is this just speculation on your part because that's what the game turned out to be as opposed to the developers couldn't program the game to be in line with their vision to create a respected simulation product? An easy to pick up and play game doesn't mean how the gameplay is executed needs to be arcadey. At the same time, arcadey doesn't mean something has to look fake. People are graphics whore. Something can look extra real and extremely realistic with the most simplest control scheme catered to casuals or extra hard with the most difficult control scheme ever developed catered to your hardcore gamer. How do you know the suits wanted the interior defense to be lackadaisical? Honestly as a gamer of the competitor's product, the only major issue I had with NBA Live's 16 demo was the lackadaisical interior paint defense. A couple great things, very realistic things about NBA Live16 was the way steals actually look realistic and the way rebounding actually looks realistic. Suits-desired features still doesn't dictate what happens with the gameplay component as far as what a pass, a shot, a block, a dunk, the way the player dribbles, the way the players run, player movement, player awareness, etc should be. What difference does it make to how gameplay mechanics are implemented in the game if all the suits wanted were money making features? Session one of day one at the office for motion captures is not dictated by what features make it into the game. EA's NHL series and Fifa series' gameplay mechanic looks "real" enough. Some might consider certain elements to play arcadey, but overall, both series look real. Each game's respective programmers are able to "program" their game to do what they want. This is why I don't believe the suits caused the potential downfall to NBA Live. I believe it's because the NBA Live team simply can't program the game how they want it to be -- and that's simulation gameplay with casual easy to pick up and play controls. Gran Turismo, Forzas, Skate 1/2/3 are supposedly classified as simulation products more or less and sells pretty well.

Your right I don't know much of anything that caused this, it was purely speculation on my part and I'll leave the conversation at that so we can remain on topic.

# 64 HoosierDaddy @ 05/12/16 02:52 PM

This needs to be said...

If they (all of EA) were serious about putting out a quality product that would actually create some competition, they would be much more receptive to the ideas the community could provide. I've offered my services multiple times and I'm aware of others who have done the same with minimal response. I hate to say it, but look at what the "other" game has done with bringing in these quality people. Don't have to name names, but you all get the point.

The community days we get to spend at EA are more of a marketing ploy and a sales pitch instead of bringing in these people EARLY in the process to actually have some impact on what the final product could be. Devs (not all) are afraid to think outside of the box, they get tunnel vision, and develop the attitude that we as consumers don't know how to improve a product. It's sad to say, but many of these devs don't know the game of basketball and yet are tasked with creating a "sim" game. Shame on you, EA, you get what you deserve. It's unfortunate for us as gamers (and true sim heads) though who really wanted to see this game succeed.

Adios.

# 65 Hassan Darkside @ 05/12/16 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strawberryshortcake


	Then the obvious question is, how do you know all of this? How do you know that they in fact wanted an "arcade easy to pick up and play catering to the casual gamer." How do you know about the "2man animation" part? Is this just speculation on your part because that's what the game turned out to be as opposed to the developers couldn't program the game to be in line with their vision to create a respected simulation product? An easy to pick up and play game doesn't mean how the gameplay is executed needs to be arcadey. At the same time, arcadey doesn't mean something has to look fake. People are graphics whore. Something can look extra real and extremely realistic with the most simplest control scheme catered to casuals or extra hard with the most difficult control scheme ever developed catered to your hardcore gamer. How do you know the suits wanted the interior defense to be lackadaisical? Honestly as a gamer of the competitor's product, the only major issue I had with NBA Live's 16 demo was the lackadaisical interior paint defense. A couple great things, very realistic things about NBA Live16 was the way steals actually look realistic and the way rebounding actually looks realistic. Suits-desired features still doesn't dictate what happens with the gameplay component as far as what a pass, a shot, a block, a dunk, the way the player dribbles, the way the players run, player movement, player awareness, etc should be. What difference does it make to how gameplay mechanics are implemented in the game if all the suits wanted were money making features? Session one of day one at the office for motion captures is not dictated by what features make it into the game. EA's NHL series and Fifa series' gameplay mechanic looks "real" enough. Some might consider certain elements to play arcadey, but overall, both series look real. Each game's respective programmers are able to "program" their game to do what they want. This is why I don't believe the suits caused the potential downfall to NBA Live. I believe it's because the NBA Live team simply can't program the game how they want it to be -- and that's simulation gameplay with casual easy to pick up and play controls. Gran Turismo, Forzas, Skate 1/2/3 are supposedly classified as simulation products more or less and sells pretty well.

Lol you're thinking too hard. EA Devs have been pretty candid in the past about (in particular this game and Madden) about the vision of the managers vs the vision of the people that work there.

The Devs aren't deciding to not give a **** when they're programming. This was posted on Reddit last year and I've posted it around here a couple of times for those that may want perspective...

Quote:


	As a former developer, there's a lot of things I wish gamers knew. Here are some of those things... Game engines help, but every game is essentially made from scratch Game Engines like Unreal and Unity can reduce the load, but they also add a layer of complexity to your codebase, and some walls that you have no ability to customize. Ever wonder why so many UE 3 games feel really similar? Because making changes to some of those base elements was considered too costly for the development team to do. (Read as: someone would need to completely read, understand, and extend the Unreal Engine without breaking EVERYTHING) Code and assets can be shared between projects, and occasionally teams. However, usually enough time has passed between when the code was poorly written at 2 AM to meet a deadline a year ago that nobody really remembers/knows why it was written that way. Time to rebuild it and reinvent the wheel, or ignore it and hope there isn't a bug. Think this is only reserved for **ty developers? It isn't. Unless a dev team has all of its original members, with all genius-level brain capacity, and none of them ever took a break from developing they will not remember what everything does, and waste time relearning stuff and integrating it into a new game. Better graphics = higher budget** Everyone is loving those new Unreal 4 screenshots. So realistic. Did you know that Epic Games spends months with a large team just to create each demo? And the demos are usually one-and-done scripted scenes to prove out a concept, not a complete game. Ever wonder why so many games have been getting released in a semi-broken state? Because many studios are not committing the correct amount of time and resources to provide the content at advertised quality. Development is far more expensive and time consuming than you could ever imagine. A common phrase for developers is: “The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time” One feature change/addition can require several hundred hours or more of testing Large AAA studios have QA teams that outnumber the dev team, usually by a large margin. Any time the code is changed you have 3 possible outcomes: The game is broken, everyone stop working and find out why The game MAY be broken, upwards of a hundred people need to be mobilized to retest absolutely everything in the game Just kidding, there’s only 2 options. Stop dreaming. You may think additions to the pause screen would be a quick change with no consequences on the rest of the game...until it breaks the game. You may think the player customization should have no effect on the final boss battle…. until it breaks the game. You may think an artist can add content to a level with no adverse effects….until it breaks the game. Starting to get the idea? I’ve seen development come to a halt for the most trivial of changes that you would be shocked any game was ever finished. Game studios are like group projects in college Remember all those fond memories you have of getting assigned into groups in your English 101 class? Remember how awesome it is to do group projects? Game development is like that. It is EXACTLY like that. Imagine a group project where 5 people need to write sections of a creative writing assignment in a Word document together. That’s EXACTLY like game development assuming some of the members are not native-English speakers. Sometimes a game is a failure because of poor management. You would be surprised how many talented and passionate people are in the industry. Poor management can ultimately sink a talented team almost every time. Every game is just smoke and mirrors with known defects when it's shipped I remember a simpler time, before I began my game development career, where I bitched about developers failing to add accurate collisions to character props, or pieces of trees, etc. I remember complaining about the lack of realism in character faces, or hair, or anything. Guess what? Almost none of those things I mentioned are created or placed in a game by programmers. These things will almost NEVER be right no matter how many developers you throw at a game, or how long they develop. There are usually so many higher priority problems with a game at the end, that spending time on these minor issues is viewed as a waste of money, time, and energy. Artists and designers generally spend the end of a development cycle by figuratively putting rugs over the cracks in the floor, and hanging paintings over holes in the walls. This is called polish. Great artists and designers can sometimes make a mediocre game feel nearly perfect, but it’s all done at the end, and only if there is time and money for it. The work done here is what people praise more than anything, and is the least important and poorly planned part of the project. No game has ever finished early No game has ever finished early. There just isn’t enough time to fix everything. If you gave a development team hundred years to make a game, they would take a hundred years and complain about running out of time at the end. The reasons for this are varied: Developers generally schedule the project based on the amount of time allowed in an attempt to maximize the output from a team Nothing ever goes exactly to plan, leaving management with a load of tough problems to solve, and pushing the team past internal deadlines As the complexity of the project increases, the difficulty and time involved with testing and fixing issues increases disproportionately. You have to test the combination of features as well as the feature by itself on the off chance that some edge case bricks the game. Given more time, developers unleash their ambitions and elect to make larger and more complicated systems with more attention to detail. Nobody ever says “Ok, I think we have the perfect ___.” and never looks at it again. No developer is scamming you to get your money Game developers love their jobs. They’d have to or else they would be suicidal. With the amount of training and knowledge required to be a successful developer, there are about a thousand other jobs you could take that pay better, and give you less stress. They want to be universally successful, entertain the masses, and be recognized for their work. This is not an environment where people want to half-* something for the sake of a paycheck. The reason some of these games end up being **ty is usually because of investors, publishers, and MBAs. These people are not developers, and they view the development cycle as a business investment. They do not make decisions for the love of the community, they make decisions for their bottom line. Unfortunately, the larger a game budget needs to be, the more important people like investors and publishers become. By pushing things towards high-end graphics, the consumer is forcing non-developers into the process, and destroying their own games.

# 66 iFnotWhyNoT @ 05/12/16 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hassan Darkside


	Lol you're thinking too hard. EA Devs have been pretty candid in the past about (in particular this game and Madden) about the vision of the managers vs the vision of the people that work there. The Devs aren't deciding to not give a **** when they're programming. This was posted on Reddit last year and I've posted it around here a couple of times for those that may want perspective...

Code and assets can be shared between projects, and occasionally teams. However, usually enough time has passed between when the code was poorly written at 2 AM to meet a deadline a year ago that nobody really remembers/knows why it was written that way. Time to rebuild it and reinvent the wheel, or ignore it and hope there isn't a bug.

I think that's what starwberryshortcake was getting at, at one point do you begin to blame the dev's for glaring issues that have been talked about from past iterations of the game not being properly addressed in the new version... i agree it's not entirely on the dev's but when you see the same complaints year round, you have to wonder.

However, ultimately the blame for this franchise goes to first and foremost the upper management, MARKETING, and then devs.

# 67 GisherJohn24 @ 05/12/16 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackceasar


	I mean honestly and I'm not trying to dog on EA Sports (you know, don't wanna get banned), but at some point you just have to base your judgment and level of skepticism based on previous track record. It's all about that track record folks. No one put a gun to their head and told them to make really bad basketball games (Live 10 and Elite 11 I'm looking at you). Also no one put a gun to their head and told them to scrap a game, take multiple years off and talk a big game of promising that the time off was to make something truly amazing (...or at least worth a full 60.00), only for the next game to come out after the big speeches was another relative failure. I dont say "failure" but I say "relative failure" because had they just kept their mouth shut in the past, the backlash would have been so severe last time they pulled this stunt. It's track record people. No one here is out to just see EA Sport's demise. Nor does anyone here want to see them fail. So when we read articles like this and hit them hard, we have a right to do so, we have a right to be skeptical, and we have a right to disagree with the fanboys and other people over hyping up the game because of their own relationship potentially with the publisher. At the end of the day, again, it's track record. You cannot deny it. It's there. It's forever written in the history of the interwebs. It's no different than being bad with your money and debt and having a 370 FICO score now. No bank want's to hear your story, or your sell job on what you're going to do now. They don't wanna hear it and you're not getting the benefit of the doubt simply because your track record is all on you as a game developer. So he said they are giving it more development time... okay... last time you did this you had a whole two years... you talked it up.. and look what happened. So he said we want to release our own basketball game in a different time of the year to shake things up. Hmmmm... basically what you're really saying is you don't feel as confident in your own game to compete with the 2k franchise. Think about it... the fact that you don't want to release your product at the same time, and around the time youve always released it until another company started doing it better really speaks volumes in the faith and confidence you have in your own product. It's like a group of kids that arent that good at basketball wanting to play a pick up game but when they get close to the court they see some really good players there, so they just wait for those kids to leave before you get on the court.... I'm not an EA Sports ***. I wish they would get their ** together to be honest. I WANT two GREAT games so I can choose. That's not been the case in years.... Track record. When it comes to Live your's isnt great and here you go again....

Honestly they should consider hiring a ton of new people or developer all together

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# 68 CMH @ 05/12/16 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strawberryshortcake


	This is directed to anyone who has any input whatsoever, from anyone please.

You're severely understating how understaffed the Live team is.

You can't expect developers to do so much and fix so much with such a small team working at such an extreme deadline.

That's why I don't have faith in Live the product. It's not about who is on staff as the developer. It's about the management. That's not changing so why should I have faith in a product EA does not support?

They could hire Naughty Dog and the game would be just as poorly developed due to lack of funding and support.

# 69 Daddy123 @ 05/12/16 08:28 PM

It's pretty much over. You can ignore all you want but since 2014, there have been MINOR changes to this game. You can't come out with a new game like that with those minor changes. The game, for most, is not playable. Even presentation wise, I would say 2K has surpassed EA. EA sees their mobile game had some success and most who played it had nice things to say. Mobile is where the big money is at, they can make good money on mobile if they put 100% of their focus on it. They are not getting anywhere with a console release unless they change the whole game and come out with something totally different. And I refuse to buy the we need 4-5 extra months for release if you are not ready by original date..I doubt they will be ready by January.

Maybe they are trying to release it in January since they can't compete with 2K sales wise during the same week, and most get tired by 2K during that time, not really sure. Wish they would go in more details rather than being so quite.

# 70 Gosens6 @ 05/13/16 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Focus10


	Yall realize no more NBA Live means NBA 2K is going to be lazy with their game. Look at NBA 2K10, that was mediocre game and Live 10 was the best NBA Live. Then we got 2k11 masterpiece because NBA Live challenged 2k. It sucks EA has ruined NBA Live, it was headed towards the right direction with NBA Live 10

You have no idea what you're talking about. Live 10 was good because they had Mike Wang, lead game play producer for NBA 2k. He went back to 2k the next year and the rest is history.

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# 71 TheVinylHippo @ 05/13/16 08:44 AM

It's time to take this series out back and give it the Old Yeller treatment. This series has had rabies since NBA Elite 11. Bring back NBA Street, EA. Remaster NBA Street Vol. 2. Make NBA Street Vol. 4. Package them together if you want. I'd buy the hell out of that.

# 72 Crunky @ 05/13/16 01:11 PM

Consumer confidence: The confidence in this franchise is shot and you can see it in the responses by all community members. Although this reaction is justifiable, I consider things from a business perspective as it relates to their competitor. With the landing of Kobe Bryant as their cover, the competition, in spite of any further innovations of gameplay, already nailed the sales of their product simply because of the "memorabilia effect". This is huge! Considering the fact that those who don't even play NBA basketball video games, will simply buy the game as a collectors item, shows how history tends to repeats itself. This process occurred when NBA 2k acquired Michael Jordan for their cover as well.

So what now? Will NBA LIVE fumble in their franchise and give it up as they did back in 2010? Or will they use another way to stimulate a community response by making the mobile app( which has a higher approval rating versus the console product) accessible to all on a global scale? Thereby, somehow remaining relevant to a new demographic of the consumer base to give the game a chance and evaluate it conveniently through their mobile devices outside the limitations of a console. I believe the mobile app will buy EA time to implement extensions upon game modes that has been untouched since Live 14, such as Dynasty and Rising Star, and they can hopefully add further innovations in gameplay as well. This is definitely a risk for EA. Nevertheless, I am glad to know that EA understands that releasing a product that is worth the price is better than releasing a product they claim to be worth the price but is incomplete upon release.

This is not the first time a video game has pushed back the release of their product to ensure that the product is released at its highest quality. However, because of past events and the uncertainty of whether or not EA is capable of delivering a suitable basketball gaming product, is the reason why this looks horrible to the eyes of baskstball gamers. The idea is reasonable and makes a ton of sense, but the history of this franchise tells us that it does not. Only time will tell. Personally, I want to make sure that if I am going to invest my money into a product, it has to be released at the height of its quality. Doesn't matter when NBA LIVE is released. It won't beat 2k in sales. It really didn't make a difference releasing the game of NBA LIVE 16 at the same date as NBA 2K16. The sales in the first month of release for NBA LIVE (the dreaded "8,000" copies sold) proves this theory tremendously. Having said that, take your time, focus on your development and give us a product that is worth playing. Not just for now, but for many years to come. Give me quality. For that I will wait. It's not a good look, but for me, I say.... why not?
On the developers for NBA LIVE; no pressure right

# 73 sarlndr @ 05/14/16 01:29 AM

Goodnight sweet prince...

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# 74 bjones16 @ 05/14/16 07:05 PM

If Live stops coming out, 2k16 and Live 16 will be the last basketball games I buy. 2k will become Madden with no competition.

# 75 Gosens6 @ 05/15/16 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjones16


	If Live stops coming out, 2k16 and Live 16 will be the last basketball games I buy. 2k will become Madden with no competition.

2K hasn't had any competition in years and years anyway. Look at the sales numbers. Live hasn't been a threat to 2K since god knows how long.

I can guarantee 2K would have been the same quality whether we were getting Live or not. The sales numbers say it all, Live doesn't and hasn't scared 2K one bit.

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# 76 Tonyattia @ 05/15/16 12:25 PM

I disagree with the notion that live hasn't made 2k better. I have a few examples

- Scott Og was on live and then went to 2k, not sure that happens if if live didn't find him
- Live 14 had the defensive coach options for pick and roll defense, how to defend off ball screens, when to double team ect. All 2k14 had was points of emphasis, now they've got the most in depth defensive game planning in sports video games. Live helped push them toward that
- Live 14 had the manual 'lob' and 'lead' pass and 2k14 didn't, next year 2k15 adds those controls
- Live had the signature size ups in live 14, 2k14 didn't. Next year in 2k15 they added it and then expanded it in 16
- Live 14 had cheer leaders and mascots, 2k14 didn't, the next year they added them
- Live was the first to start scanning in shoes, it was the one thing that looked better than 2k visually. Now 2k has added them
- Live' 14 ultimate team had fantasy challenges, now 2k has added them to my team
- Live allowed you to pick your team, then moved you to another screen to select your jerseys, a feature 2k now uses.
- Id argue 2k stepped their soundtrack game up because of Live having Mick curate their songs.

My point is that while 2k has been the far better game in each of live's first three years coming back, just them simply having a game to compare themselves to allowed 2k to see what a different team was doing, and incorporate some of live's best components to their game to make it that much better. So besides the fact that I think live has gotten better every year, I want competition simply because the games offer differing features. It's a copy cat industry, and having a second game in the market is good for all parties in my opinion, even if it just makes the other game better.

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# 77 CMH @ 05/15/16 02:04 PM

Live was also the first to use full body scans. 2K only did head until Live made the technology a major focal point of their graphics.

I do think a lot of 2K fans don't understand what the Live team attempted and pushed. They helped basketball games quite a bit even if one could argue their implementation was the weaker.

# 78 Ermolli @ 05/15/16 11:18 PM

I found this quote from the EA's Earnings Call

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blake Jorgensen - Electronic Arts Inc. - CFO


	We don't spend a lot of time worrying about it because we feel like our ability to develop for whatever new technology comes, the risk of that's been minimized, because we've moved towards one single engine, Frostbite, and we're able to port that to whatever platform, or point that to whatever platform is evolving or is upgraded.

Maybe I didn't understand the quote well, took it out of context or I'm missing something, but does this mean Live ditched whichever engine they had and went on to use Frostbite? Could it be a reason why the game is delayed (for now)? I'm not sure about it but I felt it was worth considering.

In case someone wants to read the file it's here.

# 79 seanhazz1 @ 05/16/16 12:36 PM

I like Live 16 both for what it is and for what it isn't, without even comparing it against 2K directly.

I think their (EA's) use and exploitation of the "cloud gaming" approach will be on display in the next iteration of Live and beyond, so we will see smaller installation sizes, the ability to add higher quality content with shared processing power, and faster and more frequent updates (as needed). Unfortunately I also think it paves the way for more Pay to play content across the board.

Another thing to think about, what if they (EA Sports) are programming to meet the capabilities and standards of the newly announced systems (PS4 Neo and the "New xbox", VR, as well as PC?), that games being developed now can't take advantage of unless through patching or later updates? We all know patching sucks on multiple levels, compared to a refined release product.

From a business standpoint it makes sense, to consolidate to one source code for multiple platforms, its cost effective and works to provide consistent releases of updates and content across systems, especially if on any level it allows cross platform play, which seems a direction gaming is going. I hope it doesn't also mean they are limiting the resources for specific Live 17 development, as dev podcasts previously stated focuses on things like, dynasty, improved modes, graphics, improved physics, etc.

I also wouldn't be surprised if they added some VR capabilities in LIVE (or other EA sports games...imagine baseball in VR???) with the released date pushed back.

Personally, I'm keeping hope alive for Live 17, because of the support and the amount of improvements in game play since launch, ...until otherwise noted.

# 80 Crunky @ 05/16/16 08:13 PM

I've got 2 game related reasons for the delay of NBA live 17.

I'm just speculating but one of the reasons for the delay is maybe a create a team feature that ties somehow with their mobile game. If you look at NHL 17 they showed off a create a team feature in their trailer and its a fact that in the past easports shared concepts amongst their franchises. This maybe ties to their mobile game somehow with microtransactions to download certain logos,jerseys,arenas etc. I could see why for the delay to implement this customization feature they would want to get it right on the first implementation of this feature.

The next reason for the delay could be because their starting from scratch with their animation base where they mo-cap everything and not just a little bit like last time. All this is time consuming and won't be possible in a 1 year dev cycle. Players shooting not looking at the basket was the last straw which forced their hand to improve the animation quality. Animation and game play go hand and hand for NBA live to fix gameplay they have to fix their animations and I believe they now know that. Once again this is all just speculation on my part, so people don't get your hopes up.

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NBA Live Committed to Consoles - Shipping in 2017, But the Focus Will Be on Mobile