NBA Elite 11 Delay Should Benefit The Competition

NBA Elite 11

If you haven't heard, EA has been forced to delay NBA Elite 11 - designed to "emphasize player movement and skill-based shooting" - until they're positive they can "deliver a breakthrough basketball experience."

We're still not sure when it'll arrive, but it definitely won't show up next month, when it was initially expected to release. If you check GameStop's database, they have a placeholder date of March 31, 2011, which just so happens to be the end of the publisher's fiscal year. But you know, such delays can really hurt. According to GameSpot citing a note to investors penned by Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, EA has lost significant sales by delaying the highly anticipated game. Therefore, he lowered Wedbush's projections from $1.52 to $1.46 billion for the holiday quarter; a loss of around $60 million. Furthermore, because it won't be around for the holidays, Pachter believes it won't sell as much as it would've had it launched next month. Now, he thinks it'll only sell maybe 500,000 copies, which is admittedly only 50,000 less than the 550,000 he anticipated with the October release.

By the way, this should prove beneficial to the competition: 2K's NBA 2K11 could stand to inherit a lot of sales, simply because it'll be the only b-ball game around for the holidays. By the way, NBA Jam will drop for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this holiday season, too, but Pachter said an arcade-y game isn't a "true substitute" for NBA Elite 11.

Tags: nba elite 11, ea, electronic arts, michael pachter, nba 2k11

9/29/2010 8:50:33 PM John Shepard

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