Reading between the lines of an open letter by NBA Live's new executive producer, one understands that whatever comes next in that franchise is really no continuation of last year's effort, which, like its 2010 predecessor, was aborted a few weeks before its assumed date of release.

In 2010, EA Sports brought NBA Elite 11 to E3 as a shootaround demo only. I remember this vividly. You played as one player in a practice setting, learning the timing of the new stick-shooting controls. If you still have the ill-fated NBA Elite 11 demo, go to its practice mode, that's what we saw three years ago.

Well, this is strange. Chris Sanner of Operation Sports spotted a survey looking for people in the Vancouver area to serve in a focus group on a "New NBA Concept." EA Canada, in nearby Burnaby, for years was the studio responsible for the label's NBA products, right up to the ignominious cancellation of NBA Elite 11.

Inside a publisher or a studio, there are few surprises when a video game bombs in its reviews. Before it goes from gold master to warehouse to retailer, the focus groups are empaneled, the "mock reviewers" are contracted, and their verdicts are in. Everyone knows roughly where the game will land in the…

NBA Live 10 is one of six EA Sports titles that will lose online support on Jan. 11., according to a notice from Electronic Arts. While retiring online features for sports titles more than a year old is not uncommon for any sports publisher, killing multiplayer support for NBA Live 10, which released in 2009, is…

On Sept. 27, EA Sports scrapped NBA Live 13, the second straight cancellation in the series' troubled history. Quarterly earnings calls are coming soon and many will be listening intently for anything Electronic Arts has to say about an expensive license, coming to the end of a console generation, that hasn't produced…

EA Sports today canceled its troubled NBA Live 13 project. It is the second time in three years that sports video gaming's dominant publisher has pulled the plug on its NBA simulation at the last minute.

Though recently promoted to Electronic Arts' chief operating officer, EA Sports' old boss, Peter Moore, still is involved with products coming out of that division. And in an interview with IndustryGamers, he said he doesn't expect their next NBA simulation, due in 2012 after a two-year hiatus, to compete with NBA 2K…

About this time last year, at E3, I was chewing the fat with a 2K Sports representative about NBA 2K11 which already looked to be the monster it would become. Long dominant in the pro basketball genre, the game with Michael Jordan on its cover was going to be 2K's Sunday punch to EA Sports. "That's the idea," the guy…

For a brief moment Tuesday, I wasn't sure we'd be seeing any basketball video game this year, even though I'd taken for granted that NBA 2K12 would release, a death-and-taxes sure thing in October for more than 10 years.

After the disastrous, last minute cancellation of NBA Elite 11, Electronic Arts is keeping its basketball sim video game on the bench for another year, saying that it won't ship a new entry in the NBA Live/NBA Elite franchise until the fall of 2012.

In sports collectibles, one company's mistake is another man's fortune. (Ask Billy Ripken.) Five months after NBA Elite 11's embarrassing cancellation, copies of the game are still circulating over eBay - as well as box art, download cards, and other mementoes of the game that never was.

With NBA Jam on shelves and earning praise (deservedly), EA Sports is being a little more candid about NBA Elite, the canceled title and Jam's original dancing partner.

EA Sports' decision to indefinitely delay NBA Elite 11 doesn't affect plans for the mobile version of the game. It will arrive later this month for iPhone and iPod Touch, and will take advantage of the iPhone 4's high-quality display.

Coming back from E3 in June, I decided I'd seen my excuse to go get a Wii. NBA Jam, which we'd given a best-of nomination, and which was absolutely thronged inside Electronic Arts' booth, open to close.

NBA Elite 11 was indefinitely postponed on Monday, a week before its commercial release. I didn't receive any disc pre-release (for review), but conceivably they might exist somewhere in the wild. One allegedly just sold on eBay for $255.

Kevin Durant, the cover athlete for NBA Elite 11, "spoke with noticeably more sullenness" in his first comments since EA Sports indefinitely postponed the game. Hearing the news first via Twitter probably did not help his mood.

Yesterday, we reported that a delay of NBA Elite 11's release lasting past the end of the year jeopardizes the sale of as many as 1.1 million copies. Today, the analyst offering that estimate put a dollar figure on it.

The most fateful day for NBA Elite 11 was not Monday, Sept. 27, the day it was postponed indefinitely. It's Sept. 21, the day it was crucified.

Just one week before it was scheduled to hit shelves, EA Sports on Monday indefinitely delayed NBA Elite 11 for the Xbox 360 and PS3, indicating that quality concerns raised by the demo's dismal showing necessitated the postponement.