NBA Live 13 Canceled by EA Sports… Again

NBA Live 13 Canceled by EA Sports... AgainEA Sports is having a hard time hitting the rim when it comes to returning to the NBA hard court. In what should not come as a surprise, NBA Live 13 will not be arriving in stores this year.

The cancellation of NBA Live 13 comes shortly after EA Sports announced the game, their first return to the NBA in three years, would not meet its October 2012 release date. Now the game has been cancelled for the foreseeable future, though work on it will continue in hopes of a fall 2013 release under a different name such as NBA Live 2014.


EA’s struggles to put out a new NBA basketball game have been dragging on since they failed to release NBA Elite 11, a re-branding of their NBA franchise, in 2010. After that announcement, development was moved from EA Canada to EA Tiburon, the same studio responsive for Madden NFL 13, where the name changed back to NBA Live.

This past E3 saw the first appearance of NBA Live 13 to the media and it was met with criticism. The animations were a far cry from 2K Sports’ NBA 2K13 and clearly the game had a ways to go before it was ready to compete at a high level.

EA Sports executive vice president Andrew Wilson added on the NBA Live blog, “We [also know] that a great game starts with great gameplay, and this remains a huge priority for us.” Every year that EA Sports fails to put out a product, more and more players grow their allegiance to 2K Sports whose NBA franchise continues to improve year-over-year.

Source: Game Informer

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