LV 1 Blue Slime said:It has nothing to do with listening to gamers. EA wants to sell more NBA Elite, they figured they could do that by packing NBA Jam into the game to get people who wouldn't normally buy the game to buy it. Eventually, EA realized people aren't going to pay 60 dollars for what probably isn't more then an arcade game. They then realized more money could be made doing it standalone. I'm fully aware their PR will spin it in such a way that makes it look like it's for the customers, but I promise you it's not.
Well like I said before, NBA Jam was always intended to be sold as a stand-alone product. They originally planned to give it timed exclusivity as a bundle with NBA Elite, purely because it would drive up sales of a falling franchise. Similar to what happened with Call of Duty Classic, in giving gamers an incentive to buy the special editions of MW2 over the more-sensible standard edition. It was going to go on sale on the marketplace by the holiday time anyhow. This isn't just reiterating what is painfully obvious, I also have a few friends at EA who heard the same from their superiors.
But after the negative responses to the NBA Elite demo, and the typical wave of affection towards their 2K Sports competition, EA must have realized that not even NBA Jam could save them. By delaying their game, they will likely see more launch-day sales for Elite. Why? It won't be in direct competition with NBA 2K11. The diehard basketball fans will have enough time between releases to afford both. Not to mention, with time to watch their competitor, they can add features to Elite that they will promote as "better than 'such and such feature' from 2K11."