NBA Live 2005 goes gold, moves forward, drops price

When the August NPD best seller charts were revealed, they left no question that EA Sports' Madden NFL 2005 was still the best-selling football game of the year. However, they also revealed it is facing stiff competition in the form of Take-Two and Sega's budget-priced ESPN NFL 2K5, which was released several weeks before. ESPN NHL 2K5 employed a similar strategy, hitting the virtual ice three weeks before NHL 2005.

Until yesterday, it looked like EA Sports' and ESPN's basketball games were set for a head-to-head clash on October 5. But today, EA made a surprise fast break, and announced that its NBA Live 2005 has gone gold and will ship on September 28--one week before ESPN NBA 2K5. The new date only applies for the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 versions of the E-rated game--the PC version is still due out October 12.

Besides moving up NBA Live 2005's ship date, EA Sports is also countering ESPN NBA 2K5's $19.99 price point. Today at the BancAmerica Securities 34th Annual Investment Conference in San Francisco, EA CFO Warren Jenson said all console versions of NBA Live 2005 would now cost just $39.99, a $10 drop from the standard EA Sports price point. Jenson also announced a new promotion where purchasers of any two EA Sports titles will get a third for free. That promotion is slated to start next week.