EA has once again shelved the NBA Live franchise as they announced on Tuesday that they have cancelled NBA Live 20. They are waiting for the next generation of consoles to come out before they release the next game in the franchise.
Sony will be releasing their next console, PlayStation 5, in the fall of 2020. Microsoft’s next console, temporarily named Xbox Scarlett, will come out around the same time.
The chief executive officer of EA, Andrew Wilson, informed investors of management’s decision to cancel NBA Live 20. He stated his reasoning for the cancellation during a conference call.
“We’re not launching a new NBA Live HD product this season. Instead, we’re expanding our vision, leaning hard into the new leading-edge platforms, and taking the time to ensure we deliver against the opportunity for our players.” Wilson explained.
After the announcement of the cancellation, EA’s stock price fell around 5% during after-hours trading.
Here is a tweet from the official EA Sports NBA Live Twitter addressing fans.
This is not the first year that an NBA Live game hasn’t made it to a console.
For decades, The NBA Live franchise has been a leader in basketball video games. It started back in 1994 with the first entry in the series, NBA Live 95. It came out for the Super NES, Genesis, and DOS.
However, the NBA Live franchise has been anything but consistent with console releases. NBA Live 11 was only released for iOS. NBA 12 was never even announced due to the development of the franchise moving from the British Columbia-based EA Canada studio to Florida-based EA Tiburon studio. Also, NBA Live 13 was canceled, and NBA Live 17, named NBA Live Mobile, was only available for Android and iOS.
If gamers need to get their fix of video game basketball, they can pick up a copy of NBA 2K20. It is developed by Visual Concepts and was released on September 6, and it is currently the top-selling video game of the year.
NBA 2K20 has earned a 7.8 out of 10 by IGN and a 2 out of 10 on Steam, making it a very subjective game that NBA fans need to play themselves to make up their mind.
It has been a memorable couple of days for the EA. On Tuesday, they announced that EA games were heading back to Steam. EA removed their games from Steam in 2011 in favor of their own gaming platform Origin, and now eight years later, they are back in partnership with Steam.
The first game EA is launching on Steam will be Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, coming out November 15. They will also be bringing their subscription service, EA Access, to Steam sometime in the spring.
