14 DAY TRIAL // In an investor note analyst Michael Pachter, who watches the video game industry for Wedbush Morgan, announcing that the publisher might loose about 60 million dollars because of the delays of NBA Elite 11, which was initially supposed to arrive on October 5 of this year and has now been pushed back to an unspecified date in the spring of 2011.
Pachter says that Electronic Arts will now only sell 1.46 billion dollars worth of video games over the all important Christmas shopping period, when publishers are looking to get into the black in financial terms.
The analyst also believes that NBA Elite 11 will have some problems attracting buyers when it finally arrives during next year and he even sees a possibility of the basketball simulation being canceled.
The basketball based franchise is, alongside Madden NFL and FIFA, one of the most important in the portfolio of the EA Sports division.
The problem is that NBA 2K11 from Take Two, a rival franchise, is still set to arrive on October 5 and will probably attract a lot of NBA Elite fans, allowing them to get their basketball fix before the start of the real life season.
Pachter says that NBA Elite 11 could sell about half a million copies when it arrives in 2011 which is lower than it could move during the same period if it would be released in its original October date.
NBA underwent a name change earlier in the year, shedding its earlier Live persona, and the developers are saying that they are aiming for a more physical experience, with real life player attributes affecting the course of play.
On October 5 Electronic Arts is still launching NBA Jam, a more arcade influenced game that will now become multiplatform after being billed as a Nintendo Wii exclusive for a long time.