I find it so hard to believe EA has fallen like this. I was blown away upon playing the first few minutes of the Elite 11 demo, the animations and movement were brutally behind what the 2K series has to offer. EA has tremendous resources, people and money, hard to believe they are getting completely owned by 2K who is working with much less. Live 10 was actually a fairly solid game, I enjoyed it, not as much as 2K10, though it had some great aspects to it. I honestly believe EA should have canceled Elite this year and further refined it before tarnishing their new brand and title.

Fantastic read Chris. I feel bad for the development team though, they'll eventually end up taking the fall for this product. Like you said, it's not entirely their fault, it's the tools and cards they were dealt and unfortunately time was not on their side.

EA needs to take a page from other developers. When games aren't ready and won't represent the team and company in their best light, they push the game back however far it needs to go within reason. I'm sure there are budgets etc to maintain. But budgets not withstanding, what damage do they do to their "new" brand name by releasing this title "as is", it's a real shame.

I just hope when EA corporate comes chasing down the team members that end up taking the fall, they'll find a new job soon, I feel bad for them, I really do.

Peace

THE FUTURE FOR NBA ELITE... The only way Elite can "compete" with NBA 2k is to make the players look, and flow better than NBA 2k does. Ever since live 06 the players still look and flow the same. there's no difference between the players bodys( fat, skinny, muscular, slim, chubby, varying short length, players waistline variation). The face models are plain, now they have to be exceptionally realistic next year i.e. animate the hair of players with longer hair( Anderson Ver. Dirk, Steve Nash, Balkman's dreads) etc. Make the player models look just as good or better than NBA 2k plus make a exceptional create a player engine.* NBA 2K "create a player" engine was unbelievable !!! You could make yourself look almost exactly in your image. So you need tons and tons of hair styles i.e. use other players hairstyle and MAJOR detailing to make a gamer feel like their really in the game. With the exception of the player accessories, the "CREATE A PLAYER" from live 6-10 was horrible! The dark skin created players and hair styles were just plain horrible!. Plain and simple, Sun Tzu; KNOW YOUR COMPETITION!!! Look at what they(NBA 2K)have done, then do EXACTLY what they've done, BETTER with YOUR flavor to it!!!!! That WILL EVEN the playing field for both sides again. Question; What can YOU DO to make what THEY'VE done, BETTER for NBA ELITE 12 ???????? Then let the games begin! * * * * * * ** S.E. *

I don't think NBA Jam will be enough to justify buying Elite. NBA Jam is the type of game that was really the most fun when played against a human opponent, so user vs. CPU games will probably get redundant. Replay value on it will probably be pretty low, and replay on Elite--forget about it.

i feel bad for the developers. those guys are doing their best at what they do for a living i'm sure based on the resources they're given . i blame the suits at ea, the guys that made the decision to bail on nba live and not continue to build on the decent game they had. i hope ea has the last laugh in 2013 or 14, at the end of their 3 year plan to right this ship. bc if they do, then we win, bc we will have more than one good basketball option to choose from. but for now, ea loses, and the fans of live 10 lose.

I haven't been this disappointed about a game in some time. It's not just with Elite, but with the whole situation. First NCAA Basketball and now this, I've just about given up on anything EA puts out. The suits are always to blame, their the ones who's farthest from the fan/customers.

These devs are thrown into situation were they probably work long hours, dealing with time constraints and forced to get something to the public so the suits can smoke their fat cigars and drive their fancy cars. While all alone the hardcore fans suffer. They should do the right thing and lower the price and start like 2K with $19.99 basketball games until they right the ship.

I respect you developers for coming on here and taking a pounding. I know you guys have a long road ahead, just remember.....anyone can bounce back. I just hopes it's soon.

Total let down. After playing this demo, I went back and played live04 on the PS2.The speed and grace of that game killed it for me for Elite11. Live 10 was the freshest of all live series on the next gen. If EA were smart,they would look to hire some of those talented guys that be patching the nba 2k games on the pc to bring there player models up to par. Plain and simple, Sun Tzu; KNOW YOUR COMPETITION!!! Look at what they(NBA 2K)have done, then do EXACTLY what they've done, BETTER with YOUR flavor to it!!!!! That WILL EVEN the playing field for both sides again

I remember when nba 2k was using the right analog stick for dribble moves. I don't remember which year though.They took that from live so live users could play 2k just about the same as live. Hint; hint; EA..

You must have played the demo for 2 minutes, and then quit because you couldnt figure out how to play the game.

I find it impossible to believe you played the demo for any amount of time, and came to the conclusions that you came to.

#25, VERY FEW feel the way that you do about this game - I'm happy that it works for you, though majority didn't like what it had to offer.

This is a three-year plan, right now the game is at an alpha stage, it's a work in progress, it should have not come out, darned one-year production cycle....

i'm a 2K fan and haven't downloaded the Elite 11 demo but i can tell right now, the game is going to be bad. i have never liked live on the next gen. but this really sucks. even EA fans aren't happy. i haven't seen nearly as much fanboy forum trolling and comments. this is really unfortunate and it's too bad the game probably won't be very good. plan and simple: you need competition.

I dunno why people keep saying EA should have taken a year off and made elite better. What EA should have done is not start over. Live 10 was the best live game in forever, they should have improved on it. Whoever decide to destroy it and start over is who should be getting the blame.

I feel really bad for the Elite devs, basketball gaming, and sports gaming as a whole.

Usually, a bad game gets beat out because the other game is better. In this case, however, EA pretty much did THEMSELVES in. You A) Don't scrap a series when it JUST starting to get better, just because of sales; and B) You don't put out crappy product under ANY circumstance.

The devs and the community lose at the end of the day, because the suits are gonna keep making money, no matter if Elite sells or not. I think that's the point everybody's missing here: even if Elite goes to crap, the suits will still make money, even after a game like this. So, after the initial hair-pulling the suits will be doing once they see the sales, after a while, it'll be like Swizz Beats said: "On to da next one!" That's all they see: a bottom line.

Speaking of economics, I don't think EA puts much money into developing their product anymore.

Someone had said earlier that EA has so much more resources, while 2K works with less. I think that's the problem: Take-Two ALWAYS seems to put the majority of the money they make into game development; EA spends it on marketing their BRAND. No, not the marketing of the GAME; they spend it on marketing the EA BRAND.

Worse part is, we've all seen this before. If you need a reminder, look at Michigan. What I mean is, the exact same thing happened to the American auto industry. The suits putting more money in their pockets, and less in the development of their product. What's the ending result? Crappy cars being bought at full price.

The corporate branch at EA is killing American sports gaming. I say AMERICAN, because it's basketball and football that are not getting the proper TLC they deserve. Think about it: Madden = stale; NCAA Football = good, but not great; NBA Elite = horrid; NCAA Basketball = no longer in existence. What about FIFA and NHL? Those games are KILLING the competition.

Sorry for the long post, but I had to address it. EA is one of the most successful gaming companies in the world. But, their suits at Corporate are killing the brand's reputation, and sports gaming as a whole...

First up Great read.

You are spot on. EA should have shelved Elite this year & taken another year to develop the title. That's what 2K have decided to do with their NHL series after it was clear that they had lost so much ground on EA's title that they needed to take a year out to recreate the franchise. I for one will be very interested to see a NHL 2K12 title. After all 2K have bounced back well from a flagging MLB game.

If EA were so keen to release a basketball game this year I think they should have gone for another college basketball game. A college game is something many gamers would like to see & it wouldn't of come with the weight of expectation of an NBA title. Also, their is no competition fo EA to worry about. EA could have tested out the new control scheme. Although there would still be critics of the new system, I generally think gamers would be more forgiving. Fans would mostly just be happy that they have a college basketball game to pick up.

EA need to realise that you can't just focus on one aspect of a game & expect gamers to forgive you for the game being bad in every other way. Especially when there is a far superior product on the market.