October 5th. That was the original release date for EA’s NBA Elite 2011. Yes, less than a week away before release, EA went and delayed it due to lackluster reception from gamer’s hands-on time with the game’s demo. Shocking not only fans of the series, but also the developers, analysts everywhere are throwing out their two cents as to what this will do to EA Sports and their NBA game franchise. One of the most widely recognized analysts around has determined that this move could cost EA upwards to of $60 million in profits — or more.
The analyst in Question? None other than the ‘Pach Attack’ himself, Michael Pachter has come out and predicted that instead of selling 550,000 copies of NBA Elite 11 soon after launch like he originally predicted, over 50,000 sales will be lost be missing the games original release date and sales of close to 1.1 million copies will be lost due to the delay. He also predicted that EA’s earning will drop to $1.46 billion from his original estimate of $1.52 billion. Ouch, ouch, ouch!
If there is any positive news to he bad out of this situation, it’s the fact the newest NBA JAM title will be released as a standalone title for all of us to enjoy. Still this isn’t what EA Sports wanted with the new envisioning of their long-running NBA gaming franchise. For those of you looking for your NBA hoops fix the next month few months, it’s NBA 2K11 or nothing.
