Considering that Electronic Arts has the licenses to several of the major sports organizations like FIFA and the NFL, one would assume that their NBA games would be on par with their other sports games. I was wondering if this was the case with the NBA Live franchise before NBA Elite 11. I know that the NBA 2K franchise is the most popular right now, but was that the case before NBA Elite 11?

Nope. Part of the reason Elite was attempted was because Live's quality was far below the NBA 2K series. Their attempt at a reboot obviously failed.

NBA Live had its fans way back in the day, but over the past decade the quality divide between NBA Live and NBA 2K has only become wider.

I liked Live more than 2K besides the last several Live games. I used to love a few of them (I forgot the years) but Tony Parker and Gilbert Arenas were on the cover of the two I liked most. From what I remember, Live either started or handled certain things better like stats being updated daily in-reference to the real NBA, seeing hot zones where that player can shoot from, and I loved the 5 vs. 5 online (10 human players). 2K has never been good at multiplayer and they still aren't now. The latest one doesn't have a 10 player online mode even though Live did that years ago. 2K14 has a silly street basketball mode that's 3 on 3 where people just dunk and do lay-ups, SMH. I'd like for Live to make a comeback since 2K isn't good at multiplayer.

2K took control when they launched NBA 2K5 at $20. Not only was it significantly cheaper, but they'd just started to refine their mechanics, and it was kind of the perfect storm. That was the turning point.

EA was probably smart to buy the NFL license because NFL 2K5 was set to do the exact same thing.

I played NBA Live 2004 and 2005 extensively, they were fun and the hardest comp was pretty challenging; you had to play actually smart basketball to win for the most part. Started playing NBA 2k14 recently and it's at an extremely high production value level relative to older games, but the controls are kind of needlessly over-complicated and it's pretty easy to exploit some of the systems to your advantage without actually getting better at the game. It's still pretty cool just for having announcers that actually sound like announcers and the weirdass theoretical things they do in the "What if?" scenario of Lebron's Greatness campaign thingy. The random trophies that you get in 2k14 are really excellent.

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2k series is way better.if they could have continued nfl games i believe madden wouldnt be a thing now.

NBA Street > 2K > Live

Several entries before the Elite fiasco, LIVE was a really good basketball game. Always more arcade y but still very good. Early 2000's LIVE's were really fun games.

Live has been crap for the last decade. I wish 2k made a soccer and football game. We would also still have college sports games if EA wasn't a bunch of morons.

That Sony game, NBA The Inside, was better than any thing EA put out with Live in the last decade also.

oh yeah, i had completely forgot about that. They did the same thing with nfl 2k5 too (and EA bought the NFL license lol).

Live was great back on SNES, i think 2k has been better since it was released on the dreamcast. 2k always had the ability to play defense, which live always neglected and focused way to much on fancy dribble moves instead of actual sim gameplay.

There was a Live I really enjoyed that had those specialities like 2K has now, but they weren't passive and the best players had gold specialities. You would do crazy dunks, assists and weird looking shots. Was great fun but I bet the sim crowd would have hated it, like me now.

Also I remember it having a dope soundtrack where I discovered Kick Push.

Even before everyone jumped on the 2K bandwagon with 2K11 (deservedly so) NBA 2K was leaps and bounds better than NBA Live for basically a decade. Don't bother with NBA Live, it's rubbish. (I do hope EA can figure it out some day, it'd be nice to see some competition between the two games)