Behind the NBA Live 15 release date decision

When EA Sports releases NBA Live 15 this October, the company will be going toe-to-toe with the juggernaut of the NBA gaming world, NBA 2k15.

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Some may believe that choosing to release on the same day — October 7 — as its primary competitor, and the game that has dominated the basketball market for the last half-decade, isn’t the smartest of ideas. For EA Sports, however, that decision doesn’t seem to worry the company one bit.

“I don’t think so,” executive producer of NBA Live 15 Sean O’Brien said. “I think the reality of the situation is that we’re still a work in progress.”

By terms of the licensing deal, both game parties — 2K Sports and EA Sports — have to come together with the NBA, and agree on a date that neither company will ship their game before. The three groups decided that no game will ship before October 7, but that doesn’t mean one, or both, of the companies can’t decide to change the shipping date to later.

My expectation isn’t that just because you and I are having a conversation and an article is written that people will say, ‘Wow! It looks like EA is doing some amazing stuff. I’m going to buy that game.’

However, don’t expect EA to back down from going up against 2K Sports on the same day. O’Brien believes his company made the right choice in launching on the same day, and says that the biggest task is getting the game to where people can check it out for themselves.

“We’ve got a lot of plans around trial, and how we can get a lot of people a hands on trial of the game,” he said.

Without officially confirming it, O’Brien did hint that a demo for the game will be coming sooner than average demos are released. In most cases, a demo for a game is released two weeks prior to a game’s official launch. With NBA Live 15, it appears as if the company is pushing to get a demo out a bit sooner than that.

That being said, O’Brien isn’t counting his chickens too soon in regards to the response of the game. He knows that there is work to be done, and doesn’t expect people to just come out of the woodwork this year singing the praises on NBA Live based on what’s being said. O’Brien wants to show people how much better the game is.

“My expectation isn’t that just because you and I are having a conversation and an article is written that people will say, ‘Wow! It looks like EA is doing some amazing stuff. I’m going to buy that game.’,” he said. “My hope is that people try the game. And I think that they’ll be pleasantly surprised, and I think we’ll definitely exceed expectation.”

O’Brien hopes that once people see the game and test it out for themselves, more and more new players will come over to the EA Sports side of the fence. Once they check out the new gameplay mechanics and overall feel of the game, O’Brien is confident that people will like what they see, and stick around.

When it’s all said and done, the launch date of October 7 for the game on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 doesn’t seem to concern anyone at EA Sports. The company as a whole believes that it will only affect the team in the short term, but as the game grows, so will it’s popularity.

“This is a long term plan for our company,” O’Brien said. “The product will be great, and it will be getting even better as we move forward.”

Sound off FanSiders! What do you think of the decision to release the same day as NBA 2k15? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, and be sure to catch part four of the week-long NBA Live 15 series on Thursday.

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