File this one under the "Yeah, we probably all knew this was going to happen, but still..." category. EA has cancelled NBA Live 13, its little-seen proposed reentry into the NBA video game market after sitting out the last couple of seasons. Yes, EA has cancelled another basketball game.
In case you've forgotten, back in 2010 EA was thinking about revitalizing its critically dumped on NBA Live series with an all-new developer. The game, NBA Elite 11, never made it onto store shelves. Well, actually, it did make it onto a few shelves, but only because EA literally cancelled the game after it had already begun to ship to stores. The reason? Overwhelming quality issues, the likes of which have been well documented on YouTube via the lucky few who managed to snag a copy.
NBA Live 13 was to be the publisher's triumphant return to the NBA market, to challenge the recently unopposed NBA 2K series. However, when the game failed to emerge in any kind of playable fashion following an apparently spotty E3 demo, murmurs began of an inevitable cancellation. Some had a hard time believing EA's apparent inability to make a halfway playable basketball game would really cause them to cancel yet another basketball game. And yet, here we are.
I really don't even know what to say to this. It boggles the mind that essentially two years of development went into redoing a game that had already been redone, and the result was still so bad, it couldn't be released. And yet, again, here we are.
EA's post at official NBA Live 13 site signals an intention to try again next year. So look for our eventual coverage of NBA Live 14's cancellation around this time next year. I mean, they've gotta go for the three-peat, right?