CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

[MaSTA SoLIDUS]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

Those 'perhaps' points should be known right now as principles of your design and development of the series going forward.

Which is it? What is the goal? I'm not going to assume I completely understand the design process for a game with such a short development cycle, but I'd assume you have a long-term goal as to what you want in the game, considering you went and made unilateral changes based on things you came up with with relatively little input from this part of the community.

So are you saying that you don't know what way EA wants this thing to pan out? Are you just throwing it out there with the marketing and selling points for the title you have, and you're going to wait until you see the critical and sales success it has before you establish what you want to do with it going forward? It can't be that.

By biggest gripe with your responses is the gray area. Some things you can't argue, like opinion on the new controls and direction. But things like comparative graphic fidelity, feature set, and design direction should be fact. These are things that have basis in reality; if you are making an NBA simulation, and are competing against another title, the game either looks better or worse than the other one. Similarly, there has to be some idea as to what you want the game to do long term.

My initial guess, that there wasn't a particularly good long term idea as to what the game would be and they'd try to scrape by by starting over and increasing value of the package by adding NBA Jam to it.

I'd still like an answer, when they figure it out.

[da ThRONe]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

While I think this is undoubtedly the right move. Respecting or thanking EA for this is like thanking a guy for not stealing from you because you realized what he was trying to do. They have spent months telling us this game was going to knock our socks off and it was ready. No disrespect but for me this completely undermines rEAnimation word. He has been pretty honest ,but this makes him seem like a lair. If the game is as good as he says it is why this delay?

[cjamestx]

I don't understand all of the applause that EA is getting. Just because they admit their faults, that doesn't mean that it's okay. First of all, they were going to get crushed in sales in the first place. I mean be serious......how much better are they going to make the game in a few months? They did basically what musicians did and still do when big names like 50 Cent, Brittany Spears, Eminem, Beyonce, etc are scheduled to drop on the same day as their album..........they push it back lol.......Stop trying to generate buzz of a bee that's dead anyway.

[Blzer]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

This is kind of strange. Not because of the timing of the announcement and release, but because they are going to go back and tweak things that they've already produced as per their schedule. In a way, it's like they're 98% finished with what they wanted to finish, but instead of being like Polyphony and trying to finish that last 2% of GT5, they are going to work backwards a little bit and go back to about 70% completion and reconstruct some things.

In short, while this is more than likely a smart move, I can't help but wonder how much better this game would have been if they planned out a 16 month cycle in the first place when they were storyboarding. That kind of time would have probably been given fantastic use in terms of what they truly wanted to get into the game and correctly.

So while this move is surprising yet smart, I'm thinking they wish they could take their DeLorean and re-plan the game's design, still slated for a 2011 release date.

EDIT: Okay, well now I'm not sure whether they are planning on releasing the game next fall or closer to, say, February (still during this basketball season). If it's next fall, then I'm really guessing they are shoving their feet in their mouths. Having a planned two year development cycle versus two iterations of a game franchise in two years is a big difference.

[JCEVO]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

i still dont like EA or Elite. truth be told that this was a smart move but i feel disrespected that they even tried to make me or anyone else have thoughts about buying this game in its current conditions.

EA is still a stock driven company and cares nothing about the consumers, its just the feedback for elite was so bad they had no choice.

[GiantYankee]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

I haven't played live since 07 so I can't really speak to the quality. But NBA 2K has been killing it since 09. I thought that I would take a year off and wait for NBA2k12 until I read the most recent 2K blog. I hope Live/Elite comes back strong. Take this season off and come back strong for Oct of next year. Competition is a beautiful thing and we need each series to push each other.
P.S.
I'm really happy that EA didn't buy the exclusive NBA license?!?!

[nccomicfan]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

While I think this is undoubtedly the right move. Respecting or thanking EA for this is like thanking a guy for not stealing from you because you realized what he was trying to do. They have spent months telling us this game was going to knock our socks off and it was ready. No disrespect but for me this completely undermines rEAnimation word. He has been pretty honest ,but this makes him seem like a lair. If the game is as good as he says it is why this delay?

I agree...you have to believe someone in the studio will be held accountable, or at least you would think so

[Kaanyr Vhok]

Smart smart move. As soon as I hit the court with the Lakers and the Celts I was thinking they should pull the game. It was behind Live 2010 in too many concrete areas like graphics, AI, animations, probability.

[HoosierDaddy]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

While I think this is undoubtedly the right move. Respecting or thanking EA for this is like thanking a guy for not stealing from you because you realized what he was trying to do. They have spent months telling us this game was going to knock our socks off and it was ready. No disrespect but for me this completely undermines rEAnimation word. He has been pretty honest ,but this makes him seem like a lair. If the game is as good as he says it is why this delay?

come on now, just because they have delayed the game doesn't change the opinion a developer has on the game, or even a consumer. Some people think it's a decent game, most of us are in agreement that it's a beta-like game that needs tons more depth. Whatever the case may be, I commend EA for swallowing their pride and admitting it's not a finished product.

[bonannogiovanni]

Very very wise move by EA. The demo showed the world beyond any reasonable doubt that the product was unfinished. My humble suggestion to the kind rEAnimator and the Elite development team is to focus on animations from now to release day. Make it look like basketball, not like a video game.

[DaSmerg]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

Best believe EA is paying a lot of money buying all those copies of Elite 11 back from stores.

Speaking as someone who owns and operates a retail business...larger retailers like your EB/Gamestops would have something like a consignment arrangement with a larger purchase/sale like this. EA ends up footing a large shipping bill.

Interesting move to say the least. Given the track record of both EA Sports during Peter Moore's reign and EA Sports titles period, how bad must have this game been?

IMHO, this was nothing to do with negative feedback but most likely some sort of late discovered critical flaw that could not be patched...as in you just paid for a really, really expensive coaster.

[Mr.Wednesday]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

While I think this is undoubtedly the right move. Respecting or thanking EA for this is like thanking a guy for not stealing from you because you realized what he was trying to do. They have spent months telling us this game was going to knock our socks off and it was ready. No disrespect but for me this completely undermines rEAnimation word. He has been pretty honest ,but this makes him seem like a lair. If the game is as good as he says it is why this delay?

I wouldn't go that far and call him a liar. He said (I'm paraphrasing this), the game was good to him. It's just his opinion. He also said the demo was a pretty good representation of the final product. Based on the reaction to the demo, I think it was a good decision to delay it.

[da ThRONe]

Re: CONFIRMED: NBA Elite 11 Delayed until 2011

I don't understand all of the applause that EA is getting. Just because they admit their faults, that doesn't mean that it's okay. First of all, they were going to get crushed in sales in the first place. I mean be serious......how much better are they going to make the game in a few months? They did basically what musicians did and still do when big names like 50 Cent, Brittany Spears, Eminem, Beyonce, etc are scheduled to drop on the same day as their album..........they push it back lol.......Stop trying to generate buzz of a bee that's dead anyway.

I agree that this isnt done for us ,but because of us.

But I do disagree about what can be done in a 3-5months. 5months is probably more than half a development cycle. There is a lot the can improve in that time.

[DGMikeBarker]

Smart move, I just feel bad for Kevin Durant. But if he's on Elite 12 (which he better) he should get paid twice. Also I hope this move shows Ea that fans prefer simulation over arcade.

[walliworld]

must be embarrassing for EA... but it's good because game was garbage