Game BuzzardCyber Arcade

Ea Sports announced on Monday that they have acquired the rights to NBA Jam, a classic arcade game from the early 90’s, and plans on releasing it exclusively for the Wii. NBA Jam was such a huge hit in the arcades that fights where reported breaking out over who was next to play. NBA Jam also set many coin-op records for money collected at the time.

If you’re too young to remember the game, KLOV has all the information you need to see how great a game it was. It has all the old school great players in it and many of the stars of that era bought one personally for their home. Michael Jordon and Gary Payton didn’t want to be in original game but once they saw the popularity of NBA Jam they begged to be in it. Shaq even bought two games, one for his home and one to take on the road as he traveled with his team from city to city. Mark Turmell, the games creator, was brought in to assist in revamping the game and shares more little know facts of the original NBA Jam game on EA’s website.

My excitement for this new NBA Jam game was short lived when I read that the game was being exclusively made for the Wii. Nothing against the Wii but considering the average age of a gamer is 30 it just doesn’t make sense. The Wii is targeted towards the young crowd not core gamers who in fact have been propelling game development more than any other gaming sector. With y/y sales up over 17% in core game software development I don’t understand how EA can afford not to include the 360 and PS3 in it plans. Being an “older gamer” and remembering playing the original arcade version I would buy the game out of pure interest and share it with my kids. Many of the “core gamers” are slightly younger but I believe they would buy it as well. Let me know if I am wrong by taking the poll.