NBA LIVE 17 Moves to 2017 Release Date, Will Focus on Mobile

NBA LIVE has been struggling to achieve the level of success and recognition among basketball fans that 2K has with their NBA 2K franchise. As a result, it seems like EA is making some additional changes to the latest entry and moving it back a few months.

Rather than release NBA LIVE 17 within the typical window of the Fall season, they’re pushing it back into early 2017, as revealed in their quarterly results report published yesterday.

We’ll see whether or not that increase in development time makes for a better and more polished game next year, but for the time being, it looks like we won’t be seeing NBA Live 17 this year.

With this news in mind, Sean O’Brien who serves as Executive Producer on NBA LIVE took to the blog over at the NBA LIVE website to briefly discuss what this move will mean for the franchise.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to note is that while NBA LIVE is committed to supporting consoles, NBA LIVE 17 will apparently have a large emphasis on mobile. That’s not a bad decision, given the state of NBA LIVE right now. At least the game will continue to find a home on consoles, for those who enjoy it.

You can find the full post from Sean O’Brien below.

Hey LIVE fans:

I want to share some important updates on what’s next for NBA LIVE and give you an overview of where we’re going with the franchise over the course of this year.

It’s important that you know that we are committed to NBA LIVE in the console space.  While we won’t be shipping a product this Fall, we will be back on the courts with something new and exciting for you to experience in early 2017. 

Our focus this year is to deliver an amazing, high-quality basketball game to a global audience. The best way to do that is through the fastest growing, largest, and most accessible gaming platform…mobile.  As a team, we’re really excited about taking the franchise to new places with the worldwide release of our mobile game later this year.

More details to follow in the coming months!

Sean O’Brien 
Executive Producer, NBA LIVE

Do you think pushing the release of NBA LIVE 17 into early next year will allow for a better game? Let us know in the comments.