We will now read a passage from the Book of Jordan. In the beginning, there was Electronic Arts. They were a small company founded by Trip Hawkins who developed games for the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari 800 and the IBM PC. They looked down upon their early releases and thought…it was good.

Then came the days of the console, and EA ported their John Madden Football series to the Genesis. Sales and critical reception were massive, and they started to form a corporate entity. The money came pouring in, and again it was good.

But then came the day of the PlayStation 1, and one of the planned launch titles was Madden 96, a game developed by a company named Visual Concepts. The game suffered through numerous delays and eventually was cancelled. It left a black mark on an impressive resume of titles, and Visual Concepts was ousted.

With nowhere to go, Visual Concepts meets up with rival company Sega. Knowing that Electronic Arts would not release games for the Dreamcast, feeling a dollar towards them would be one less dollar to give to their Sony gods, Sega took a gamble with Visual Concepts to develop their new 2K line of NBA and NFL games. The first titles were released for the Dreamcast, reception was met with near perfect critical acclaim, and even went as far as to say it was better than EA’s products. For once, it was good not for EA, but for Sega.

But then comes the eventual apocalypse. Sega leaves the console business, and Sega starts publishing games for other consoles, including the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Both the NFL and NBA games now go head to head against EA’s dominance, and many fans show their loyalty towards Sega’s titles.

But again, the apocalypse comes for Sega twofold. They sell the rights to their 2K sports games to Take Two Interactive. But as we all know, on the third day the franchise is reborn as 2K Sports.

But even worse, the Behemoth known as EA smote down his foe in one swoop, buying exclusive rights to the National Football League and thereby killing off the NFL 2K series. Days of the far superior NFL 2K series, priced at a very attractive $20, were now gone in favor of the Madden monopoly.

But alas, the National Basketball Association did not fall into exclusivity, and both EA and 2K Sports made annual NBA releases, and 2K took advantage of it, beating out the falling NBA Live series year after year. EA even went as far as to defect one Mike Wang from Visual Concepts to work on NBA Live 10, and for the first time, it appeared that Live would finally be able to catch up on 2K. In fact, 2K’s effort last year was considered to be inferior, a fact this one critic would agree on.

Lo, EA still decides to fix it, and dumps the Live series for a new series called Elite. All that is known about Live gets changed in the form of a new control scheme that tries to mimic the successful NHL franchise, using the right analog stick to control hand movements. Many of EA’s followers do not support the change, including Wang, who ends up defecting back to Visual Concepts to work on NBA 2K11.

Momentum picks up for 2K, as well as a touch of brashness. "That looks awful," said one 2K community manager, referring to the upcoming Elite. Also about that time, 2K announces the coming of their messiah, Michael Jordan, as the cover athlete for 2K11. Ironically, Electronic Arts had Jordan under their wing for many years, including some critical flops such as Michael Jordan in Flight and Chaos in the Windy City, and 2K eventually scooped up his rights. All couldn’t work out any better for 2K…

And then it happened.

Electronic Arts releases their NBA Elite Demo, and it is critically panned all over message boards, and especially on YouTube. One video in particular, in what many consider an act of divine intervention, shows Andrew Bynum of the Los Angeles Lakers standing frozen in the middle of the court, and as the commentary in the video says, "stands in the middle of the court like Jesus." It’s almost as if Bynum, (who despite playing for the almighty Lakers, is not a religious figure,) summoned to the 2K heavens to make Elite look bad.

Panic ensues in Redwood City, as EA scrambles to find out what they will do to their Elite product? What will they do? Patch the game on day one? Add the patch to the gold master? No, they do what any other typical game developer would do….delay it until sometime in 2011. Any other game genre a delay could be understandable, but in the heavily contested sports game market, a delay like Elite’s will be disastrous.

Prophet and analyst Michael Pachter already predicts EA will suffer a loss of $60 million as a result, and it will affect another NBA title that was to be bundled as a download code…the newly acquired NBA Jam. With the Elite delay, Jam will now be available as a disc based retail, but how many people would want to pay $60 for EA’s mistake? Sure, multiple console owners can buy Jam on the Wii but some will rather wait for the high definition version…but the full price will turn them away!

And what about the condemned Elite? Will it be delayed? Don’t count on it. I’m sure it will receive the same sentence that Madden 06 suffered…eventual cancellation and potential un-repairable damage to their NBA franchise.

But for 2K Sports, obviously the NBA spirits are shining down on their followers as they will easily win this year’s basketball war. Even a similar glitch that this honored critic found and recorded on YouTube will not damage 2K11 success.

So it is videotaped, and so it is written….

Currently Playing: NBA 2K11 (360)

Waiting For: Rock Band 3 with keyboard (360)