EA Delays NBA Elite 11 To 2011, Announces Stand-Alone Multiplatform Jam

Electronic Arts today delayed the planned October 5th release of NBA Elite 11 until 2011, citing "concerns about gameplay polish" gathered from play-testing and player experience with the demo. The game, which features significant gameplay changes from last year's NBA Live 10, had come under criticism for a high number of glitches found in the recently released demo. "We are going to keep working until we're certain we can deliver a breakthrough basketball experience," Electronic Arts said in a statement. "The decision to delay NBA Elite was hard because the game has great promise. But ultimately we feel this is the right thing to do," the statement continued. "We've been making steady progress on basketball for the past few years and it's going to take extra time to make the game." Both Take Two's NBA2K11 and EA's Wii remake of NBA Jam are both still targeted for an October 5th release, ahead of the October 26th start of the next NBA season. In announcing the delay, EA also announced that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the revamped NBA Jam will be available as standalone products "in time for the holidays." Those versions had originally been planned exclusively as downloadable additions available to purchasers of NBA Elite. The NBA Elite delay follows delays into 2011 for other high profile titles including Take Two's L.A. Noire, Atari's Test Drive Unlimited 2, THQ's Red Faction: Armageddon Sony's LittleBigPlanet 2 and Activision's True Crime: Honk Kong.