My conspiracy theory goes like this.
The higher ups at EA made this decision at some point and time long before this week to not release Elite this year and make it a two year cycle for this game.
Let's look at why?
They knew they had developed a bad rep over the years with video basketball fans and 2k has a market stranglehold on them, and staying the course of a one year cycle battle of gameplay changes would be a long hard road to winning fans back.
Example: Live 10 was a pretty good game, many thought better than 2k10...me included.
But their rep hurt sales and still many, many people called the game complete trash and bashed EA just off their rep not the game...Live 10 was not trash, no more than 2k10 was.
Ok with the hold 2k has on the market and then they announce MJ...its all but over this year for EA....EA knew this and had to make a decision.
What to do?
Drop the stained Live name and re-brand.
Introduce RTP and a new innovative control scheme...But we need at least a two year cycle to implement and get this right, if not we will stain Elite with the blood of Live.
And what about basketball sales this cycle, we need something.....NBA JAM!!
What about this new total control thing, people are use to things the way they are, do they want that much control? Demo = test market demo, and if you gave the controls an unbiased chance and learned them they blow away anything we have at this point.
What was their marketing push this year?? Control,control, control. Not tons of pictures or videos,really nothing much it was all about control's.
Now they have a good foundation with RTP and the controls to build on, and a jump on 2k for next year with a full cycle to polish and tweak it and make a really special basketball game next year.
And with 2k going all out this year with what they put in their game it will be hard for them to top them selves with 2k12, leaving video basketball fans with a let down feeling or a stale taste in their mouth....EA can now pounce and be reborn with a new light on them in the videogame basketball world.
THIS IS JUST A THEORY with little time or thought put into it, I'm sure there is some truth in it some where, and on the surface it makes sense for EA to go this route, and with that said they will probably release the game this holiday season.
The higher ups at EA made this decision at some point and time long before this week to not release Elite this year and make it a two year cycle for this game.
Let's look at why?
They knew they had developed a bad rep over the years with video basketball fans and 2k has a market stranglehold on them, and staying the course of a one year cycle battle of gameplay changes would be a long hard road to winning fans back.
Example: Live 10 was a pretty good game, many thought better than 2k10...me included.
But their rep hurt sales and still many, many people called the game complete trash and bashed EA just off their rep not the game...Live 10 was not trash, no more than 2k10 was.
Ok with the hold 2k has on the market and then they announce MJ...its all but over this year for EA....EA knew this and had to make a decision.
What to do?
Drop the stained Live name and re-brand.
Introduce RTP and a new innovative control scheme...But we need at least a two year cycle to implement and get this right, if not we will stain Elite with the blood of Live.
And what about basketball sales this cycle, we need something.....NBA JAM!!
What about this new total control thing, people are use to things the way they are, do they want that much control? Demo = test market demo, and if you gave the controls an unbiased chance and learned them they blow away anything we have at this point.
What was their marketing push this year?? Control,control, control. Not tons of pictures or videos,really nothing much it was all about control's.
Now they have a good foundation with RTP and the controls to build on, and a jump on 2k for next year with a full cycle to polish and tweak it and make a really special basketball game next year.
And with 2k going all out this year with what they put in their game it will be hard for them to top them selves with 2k12, leaving video basketball fans with a let down feeling or a stale taste in their mouth....EA can now pounce and be reborn with a new light on them in the videogame basketball world.
THIS IS JUST A THEORY with little time or thought put into it, I'm sure there is some truth in it some where, and on the surface it makes sense for EA to go this route, and with that said they will probably release the game this holiday season.
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