NCAA Basketball was left out of Electronic Arts' list of key releases in a financial filing on Monday. Today, in a statement to Game Informer, EA Sports' David Tinson confirmed that the publisher has ceased work on the series.
"We do not have an NCAA Basketball game in development at this time, and we're currently reviewing the future of our NCAA Basketball business," Tinson said to Game Informer. "This was a difficult decision, but we remain a committed partner to the NCAA and its member institutions."
In early 2008, 2K Sports pulled out of the college basketball market, leaving just EA Sports. It is highly unlikely that anyone else will jump back in, given the poor sales history, the inevitable competition with two other NBA basketball titles, and the cost of the license.
Dirty little secret (that ESPN will not tell you because they show quite a bit of college basketball) about CBB, ratings are dropping and have been dropping for some time now. Overall interest on a grand scale is down (except for Spokane, which orbits around Gonzaga) and you can definitely blame that on the players that leave after one year.
Why would you want to get a name that just has the players numbers, and these players are virtual unknowns anyways. Now 20 years ago? Players were around for 3-4 years and you knew who was on each team. Now? Admit it, you might be able to name 10 players in all of college basketball outside of the Gonzaga and Eastern Washington team.
Hey NCAA? You paying attention?
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