NBA Live 14 is coming exclusively to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, with no versions planned for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, EA Sports executive producer Sean O’Brien reveals in an official blog post. “The vision is a simple one: To create a great basketball game exclusively for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.”
The EA Sports basketball series has been on hiatus since NBA Elite 11 was canceled in 2010, but EA Labels President Frank Gibeau said in May that a new NBA Live game with “breakthroughs in graphics and gameplay” will release this year. That game, NBA Live 14, debuted at E3 2013.
O’Brien worked on numerous NBA and NCAA basketball games at EA Sports over the last decade, including NBA LIVE 10. “The great news for me is that EA Sports is 100% committed to rebuilding NBA Live and growing its basketball business overall,” he writes. “There is an enormous financial commitment to the development of the product on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, including the size of the team and resources required to give us every opportunity to make a great basketball game that can compete with such a solid franchise like NBA 2K.“
2K’s basketball series enjoyed a three-year monopoly while EA Sports’ offerings were absent, but that changes with NBA Live 14. O’Brien says when he began work on the game, the “overall vision was lacking,” and he decided to focus on reworking “core gameplay.” The new game also features physics magic called bounceTek and data from Synergy Sports Technologies, which NBA teams use for scouting teams and players.
“I understand the skepticism and if I were you, I’d be skeptical too…or maybe cautiously optimistic,” O’Brien says.
