NBA Elite Being Moved to Tiburon, EA Canada Hit by Layoffs (Not Confirmed Yet)

[uponablackstar]

According to some 1up sources, Tiburon will now be handling the NBA franchise. Nothing has been confirmed, as of yet.

Quote:

"History looks to be repeating itself at Electronic Arts. Sources tell 1UP that Tiburon will now be handling the NBA franchise. The report follows a tweet from 3D Realm's George Broussard, who says that EA Canada has laid off more than 100 employees. Broussard also said that he has heard rumors of "large scale layoffs" at EA coming soon. EA Canada was responsible for the development of NBA Elite 11, which has been delayed indefinitely. The studio also handles the NHL series. Need for Speed developer Black Box and EA Canada were consolidated in 2008. If the reports are accurate, this would mark the second time in EA history that an important sports franchise has been transferred to Tiburon following a failure to launch. The first instance came when Visual Concepts failed to complete a PlayStation version of Madden NFL 96. The project was handed to Tiburon, which has been responsible for the series ever since."

[HoosierDaddy]

Sad...

Here's to hoping Tiburon can turn around the franchise, and develop some type of consistency with the franchise. I still have my bags packed and will travel to Orlando if they need me to

[CFRMIC$]

RIP EA Canada

Tiburon sucks as well.

Madden is an arcade game, and Elite will join them.

[BobbyColtrane]

Pardon my skepticism but Tiburon hasnt knocked my socks off lately...will this really be good for this woebegone game???

[sroz39]

So lemme get this straight; good, hard-working people are getting laid off at EA Canada because some higher ups at EA decided to scrap a game well on it's way to becoming great and go in a completely different direction because THEY can't tell a good game from a bad one? Somebody high up the ladder has egg on their face over this decision yet a perfectly competent and talented studio (they proved that with some solid leadership and strong vision from Mike Wang, they can make a very good bball game) gets tossed like it's their fault. You can't always turn lemons into lemonade and the direction they wanted to go with Elite takes years, not months, to develop. Heck, EA didn't release an NHL 06 on 360 but came back strong with 07 to much applause.

I'm stunned if this is true. Getting rid of Visual Concepts worked out great for EA too, didn't it.....

[bigball12]

Wow! This is shocking!

[Spectre]

Let's say my faith in Tiburon and any sport, let alone basketball, is minimal at best.

2K is in good shape going forward for the next several years- its gonna take a while for them to build a good engine at Tiburon.

[noshun]

wow, this is comedy. ...........1st hockey guys take over, now possibly football.. oh man.