Moore curbs NBA Street
By
Tom Magrino
EA Sports president says arcade-style basketballer on hiatus due to Freestyle subbrand focus.
Last week, EA CEO John Riccitiello offered an evocative analogy on the cancellation of Command & Conquer first-person shooter Tiberium, saying, "When you burn the omelet, you don't serve it." Riccitiello, who after retur ning to the publisher's top position last year has been on a tear to realign the company under an emphasis on quality, further said, "EA will kill a game or two a year. Forever."
Making good on that promise, EA has delivered one more concoction unto the compost bin. Speaking to ESPN, EA Sports president Peter Moore confirmed that NBA Street has been placed on indefinite hiatus. Elaborating on EA Sports' decision to bench the franchise, Moore told ESPN that the move reflected the company's push toward creating its own intellectual properties within its Freestyle brand.
"We'll still do traditional sports, but we're going to do them a different way," he said. "Street is a good example. We built a new Freestyle brand to do different things, and we also need to build our own intellectual properties. We rely on other people's IP for everything we do and we need to develop some new things. In the old days we had things like SSX that were our own intellectual property, but since then we've kind of moved away from that."
NBA Street: Homecourt, released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in February 2007, may have hit Riccitiello's professed minimum standard for quality in critics' eyes, but sales for the most recent installment in the franchise came up woefully short. As of August 2008, Homecourt had sold only 380,000 units across both platforms, according to The NPD Group.
By
Tom Magrino
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
54 comments
I hate what they have done to the NBA Street games the first two was amazing especially the second one. It really had that street basketball feeling over it. And then V.3 came wich sucked donkey penis why can't they just make a new version of NBA Street Volume 2, I know that almost every basketball fan with a 360 or PS3 would buy it. I would.
yeah nba street is one of the best quality sports game they made, not to mention their freestyle games, which street would easily be considered among the best -- what this really reads like is, "we are greedy and dont want to share any profits with the nba or others who have helped to make us successful over the years-- we'll just remove the names and numbers and release it without having to pay any royalities!"
EA will kill a game or two a year, forever. EA is a sad turd of a gaming company. Thank the lord they never got take-two. If they marketed NBA street properly like they do FIFA to the right audience it would sell more. Give me back my NBA street.
I like the NBA street series, well, the first two anyway...but it sounds to me like they may make another SSX, in which case, WOOT!
Street Volume 1 was a good game but Volume 2 blew it out of the water. The soundtrack in volume 2 was amazing, the gameplay was fun and I played that game like crazy. Hopefully they can rework this franchise, I think people were getting burnt out on it. I still think NBA street could be profitable for them but dont release one every year. Do some meaningful updates to it and I bet it would sell enough to make a profit. I know alot of friends that really enjoyed the Street games but felt they did not innovate after Volume 2.
I want an NHL game thats very arcadey, like Hitz, to come to the 360 or PS3. I also really really want a CFL game. (Canadian Football League)
Hmm I think that Peter Moore is one of the best things that could have happened to EA. The company seems to be moving more and more towards the right direction, maybe I''ll start buying their games one day. daveneonfarrell: sports games don't suck, but u do.
The first NBA Street (PS2) is my favorite game of all time. Street Vol. 2 isn't far behind. If the series does go on "indefinite hiatus," I guess I'm glad that they left us with at least 2 classics. The series has gone downhill ever since, but I was actually looking forward to the next one. I know NFL Tour couldn't have sold more than Homecourt, so why can't they put the NFL Streets on hiatus instead? This sucks. I hope this doesn't happen to the SSX series. Especially before they release a next-gen one.
ES is STUPID. A brand come on please. What was wrong with EA BIG! For some reason they needed to change to Freestyle. The face breaker was bad you can can that. Changeling the brand won't change the fact you cant make a good game. Not that they never made any good games. Does this mean NO SSX?
Thats a shame street homecourt was the best one since part 2. hopefully they'll still do the nfl street. madden is too time consuming and is lacking the same quality it had when it had compition from 2k, which was the better game.
Totally disagree with some of the stuff said about EA not improving their franchises. Point is: They DO, as can be seen by looking at the new FIFA, when there is competition. The harsh truth is that EA Sports is dominating throughout most of the (digital) sport market and have since quite some time not been under pressure to improve drastically. Thus Moore is doing us all a favor when he's taking an approach to "more quality".
Why take away NBA Street? They have all been pretty decent. Now they should take those NFL Tour games and can them.
it didnt sell good coz it was a first street on ps3..and it wasnt very good...number 2 was much better...thats why...ea..wheres ur logic...if u make a good nba street wid good graphics, gameplay then evryone will go buy it...the only good game u make is burnout...thats a bout it...and skate 2 will be good..the rest are just rubbish...and what happened wid ssx?we all want new ssx on ps3..how many years passed since u last made one?
wtf why would they put nba street on hiatus when its the best game they make? the only reason it didnt sell very well was because it was only on the shelves for like a week (at least it was here in australia). i had to buy mine on ebay coz it appeared and disappeared so quickly on the shelves.
boo i want a new nba street freestyle brand sucks who wants 2 play facebreaker that game sucks
Why do people keep buying EA Sports games? You can buy ones, then just wait untill the next gen console before you buy another, because EA isn't going to change anything at all about the game. In this case, the game actually got worse over the transition into the next gen (or so I'm led to believe, as i haven't played any of them). Seariously, they're on like Tony Hawk 12, stop buying them, and they'll stop making them... so stop buying them.
This didn't come as much of a surprise to me. I really liked the firs and second one. Unfortunately they got repetitive and boring sort of like a Tony Hawk game.
The last game was really not that good but it is nothing of a change for ea . The def jam game was wack and a big let down especially when fight for new york was so great . They need to improve madden more anyway .
Give Peter Moore some time. He's great at running companies into the ground. First Sega , then XBOX and now EA Sports. NFL Tour and FaceBreaker are terrible. Which sport will Moore wreck next?
i want to job shadow someone at EA for a day( specifically EA Tiburon) cuz this "quality" theme surely isnt what's in the sports devs minds...more like "they'll buy it anyway so let's just throw in crap that doesnt matter" {cough cough} "MADDEN IQ" {cough cough} lol
how can u say u want to put an emphasis on quality, then cancel one of the few games ur company does right?
come on man nba street is deffinately my favorite basketball game dont cancell it please!! thats one of the best games from ea so dont screw it up
NBA Streets is one of my fav series, damm shame to read this artical i was hoping for a new streets game in 09..
Only 380,000 copies of Nba Street Homecourt were sold. Man I thought that game was awesome.
@ Hoennhyruleguy dude, of course the wii virsion isnt as good. It's been like this with all ports since the start
They should stick with it .... the ps3 and 360 will have much bigger install bases for the next one.
it'd be nice if EA would - at the very least - do downloadable roster upgrade for NBA Street in the meantime...
EA Sports Big was the best brand for EA, SSX, NBA Streets, NFL Street, Def Jam Vendetta, were the best games from EA Sports Big. But the Freestyle brad suck. Look at Facbreaker, the game didn't do that good and Peter Moore is killing the EA Sports brand.
how anyone would consider this a smart move is far beyond me. i've bought every version of NBA street since it's arrival on the PS2. i loved every one of them - and i think it's insane that we might only get to see one installment of the game on next gen consoles (this version happened to be pretty fantastic too). heck, it's one of the few games of EA that they can legitimately improve upon on each installment. and on top of that, how can they not do SSX on next gen consoles. the old ones were great on all the old systems - and i can only imagine the amount of new things they can do now that we'll never get to see. this is pathetic, i hate EA now, i really do.
No SSX?...god d4ammit, that was the best game they offered. I guess that's what happens when you keep publishing crap, people learn not to buy it (i.e Homecourt).
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Related Game
NBA Street Homecourt
- Publisher(s): EA Sports Big
- Developer(s): EA Canada
- Genre: Sports
- Release:
- PEGI: 3+
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