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EA Sports Confirms NCAA Basketball Benching
Looking over the list of list of Electronic Arts titles planned for release during the next fiscal year, one sports franchise is notably absent. Today EA Sports senior director of communications David Tinson confirmed that NCAA Basketball has fouled out of the lineup. “We do not have an NCAA Basketball game in development at this time, and we’re currently reviewing the future of our NCAA Basketball business," he said. "This was a difficult decision, but we remain a committed partner to the NCAA and its member institutions.”
Considering that rival publisher 2K Sports canned its NCAA game last year, the move leaves college hoops fans without a sports sim. The news isn't too surprising given the game's struggle to find critical favor, history of poor sales, and the lack of post-release support from the developer. It probably didn't help that EA and the NCAA are also the targets of a few pending lawsuits over using player likenesses in the games, though that isn't stopping the duo from publishing a new version of the popular NCAA Football franchise this year.
Tinson also told Game Informer that the move to shut down NCAA will not result in another round of layoffs. Instead, the development team has been integrated into other projects. EA Canada still has two basketball games in development, with NBA Live and the recently announced resurrection of NBA Jam.
What do you say, college hoops fans? Are you disappointed? Did you even bother with this series in the first place?
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