Uh, So How About That NBA Live 13?

The NBA season begins on October 30. That's just over two months away. Typically, sports games are released in the weeks prior to the start of their respective league's season. NBA 2K13, for example, will be out on October 2, and as such we've been hearing about the game for a couple months now, whether it be the game's cover stars, its soundtrack, its Kinect and PlayStation Move support, its inclusion of the Dream Team, or whatever else. Meanwhile, we've been waiting to learn something -- anything -- about EA Sports' basketball offering. Aside from its name, NBA Live 13, being revealed earlier this year, the company has been suspiciously quiet on the subject, causing basketball game fans to wonder what's wrong with it.

You could be forgiven for believing Electronic Arts was out of the basketball sim market altogether. The series, known for more than a decade as NBA Live, was rebranded as NBA Elite for its release in 2010, but the first game with the new name, NBA Elite 11, ended up being canceled because "it was just going to be a bad game," according to an EA Sports executive. The company took last year off and was expected to be back with a game this year. Everything appeared to be on track when the company announced the series was returning to its NBA Live name in February, but eyebrows were raised when the game failed to make any sort of appearance at E3. EA claimed this was because "it deserved its own time." Well, time is running out for that to happen before the season.

A playable version of the game does exist, as evidenced by a 10-minute gameplay video of the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder squaring off that showed up on Operation Sports this week. EA confirmed Live 13 is what's seen in the video. However, it qualified that by noting it "appears to be captured from a pre-alpha build months ago and is not an official EA Sports release. It does not represent a final build or feature set for NBA Live."

That's good news, as what's seen in the video is rough. Some of the animations don't look right, particularly close-range passes. Visually, the game doesn't look bad, though (at least based on this early look) it doesn't appear to be superior to 2K13. And we don't see much of a demonstration of the ESPN presentation. The score bar looks just like an NBA on ESPN game, but we don't see many replays or information screens. My favorite announcing team, Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy, is present which is nice to see even if this isn't the best demonstration of why I like them.

So we now know the game does exist in some form. That doesn't guarantee it will ever see the light of day -- Elite 11 was in development and a demo was released before it was canned, so until the game shows up in stores shelves we can't sure of anything.

Then again, it might never show up in stores and still be released. There was a rumor earlier this month that Live 13 could see a digital release after the game was found on a list of digital content eligible for Xbox Live Rewards. Retail games are not released at launch on Xbox Live as they sometimes are on PlayStation Network, so it seems odd for Live 13 to be on this list if it's going to be disc-based. This notion now seems even more credible as the menu seen in the Live 13 video has an "Exit Game" option, something that would only be present in a downloadable title.

It's an intriguing idea, mainly because it's unlikely a download-only NBA Live would cost the same $60 it would if released as a traditional retail title. That would give it a distinct edge against NBA 2K13; as someone who shies away from buying as many sports games as I used to because they are so time-consuming, I would be very interested in a basketball sim for $20. While not a downloadable title, 2K Sports famously sold NFL 2K5 for $20 at launch, a full $30 less than the competing Madden NFL 2005. It was also the better game, but its price was undoubtedly a key part of the reason why many people bought it over Madden. The question is, would EA sell a sports game for less than the norm?

The 2K series was widely considered the superior one even before Live went on a hiatus. Now, with former Live players possibly having become 2K fans, EA needs some way to lure fans into trying Live 13; going digital-only and selling for far less would be an interesting way of attempting to do that. EA Sports executive VP Andrew Wilson said back in June "we're going to do things differently" when discussing the subject of how the game will make a comeback -- he might very well have been referring to plans for a lower-priced digital game. Even a digital game that sells for less but has certain features (franchise mode, or what have you) restricted as premium DLC (the Xbox Live Rewards listing made mention of DLC for Live 13) might be a better approach for competing with 2K13 than hoping some pick it over 2K13 as a full-priced game on disc.

It would not make much sense to release an NBA game after the season has already begun, in which case one would think we have to be hearing about Live 13 in the next few weeks. If we don't, 2K sports may once again have a monopoly on the basketball sim market this year.

Source: http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9112910

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