NBA Jam: On Fire Edition will be $15, sport a touch of razzle-dazzle

by David Hinkle on Jul 14th 2011 2:30PM

NBA Jam was meant to be bundled as a freebie before EA canned NBA Elite 11. It ended up on disc as a standalone product on Wii and, later, Xbox 360, PS3 and eventually iOS. Now, EA is launching NBA Jam yet again, this time on Xbox Live and PSN.

NBA Jam: On Fire Edition is slated for PSN and Xbox Live Arcade this fall and aims to offer the most comprehensive version of the game yet, as a $15 download. It's got a new taunting system, online features and the ability to switch between ballers when playing solo.

There are two different core taunts: a mocking gesture (called a razzle-dazzle in the game) that's meant to harass your opponent; and a self-explanatory poke. The poke isn't as strong as the shove, but it's pretty hilarious to see in action -- the cartoon sound bite helps to sell it.

Other new additions include a team fire capability, where three successful alley-oops will set your entire team on fire. You can now switch between players on demand, and the game claims to have an overhauled, more aggressive AI. There's also a new online tournament mode and online co-op campaign, if you're into that whole teamwork thing.

EA representatives wouldn't give me a narrower launch window than October at last week's EA Summer Showcase, but I was told that gamers should expect NBA Jam: On Fire Edition right around the time when "basketball games usually release." So, October, then.

NBA Jam: On Fire Edition (7/7/11)

Tags: ea, ea-sports, ea-summer-showcase, microsoft, nba-jam, nba-jam-on-fire-edition, playstation, ps3, psn, xbla, xbox

Reader Comments (39)

Enjoy your network play of this game for two years, then it will be cut.

Hell yes. This is how it should have been from the start.

@greyseal

Exactly. Which is why I'm glad I waited.

Huh, this seams pretty cool. I think I'll pick it up. I'm glad EA decided to make this one a downloadable title.

As fun as the NBA JAM series is, I'll have to decline since it is a related product to the NBA(or even the NFL for that matter), with reasons tied to the lock-outs.

And of course, the fact that neither league will lower ticket prices to the *FANS* who support their overpriced product to begin with.

@foxhound

Have you ever read a book called "Bad Sports"? I think you'd really like it.

@baby sea tuna
Is it some sort of TV show documentary or website?

@foxhound
n/m, misread your comment. I'll look up the book.

I still think this game shouldnt cost over 9.99

So it's finally going to end up where it should have been all along. And at the price it should have been. So it's the most comprehensive version yet? That's cool...I'll probably pick it up now. I wonder how those who paid $40 less than a year ago feel about this. EA drop the ball on this franchise. It's hard to imagine they could manage it worse than they did.

@HaVoK308

I was really annoyed with it during the whole fiasco, but in the end I got way more than $60 worth of fun out of the first one with the online play. Still play it nightly even to this day.

There have been a LOT of games released at $60 that were much more deserving of $15 price tags than NBA Jam was, not to mention several other arcade games.

@Vcize How many of those were released a year later with a better version for a fraction of the price?

@radioactivez0r

What do I care? I couldn't play the new version for the last year so it didn't do me any good during that time.

Some people are so obsessed with "getting a good deal" that they're willing to enjoy themselves less just for the idea of it. I got 80+ hours of immense enjoyment (and still counting) out of NBA Jam for 60 bucks. That's a damn good deal to me no matter what happens tomorrow, the next day, or the day after. It would have been a shame to miss out on all that fun for the "principle" of taking bargain shopping to the extreme, and I would have been worse off for it.

This seems to be pretty much what they did with Dead Space: Extraction.

1.Wii Game
2. Disc game pack-in using code (although it Elite was cancelled so this didn't happen)
3. PSN/XBLA Game (DS: E was only on PSN)

I wonder if this will continue.

Too bad LeBron wasn't on fire (the NBA Jam effect, baby!) during the 4th quarter. Then again, would it have mattered?

Sorry, that picture made me say this!

@Narmo23
Don't apologize, he got what he deserved.

All I really care about is if they fixed the bugs in online play.

In like 30% of the games you matchmake, it gives you control of the wrong team, and then errors out after a few seconds. Then, in other games, at some point the players in the game will get "out of sync" with each other by like 1 second, which just compounds upon itself as the game goes on so when you shoot in your "version" of the game you may not even have the ball in the other player's "version" so you just jump in the middle of nowhere. It's really, really weird.

Also, for the love of god punish the dashboarders/rage quitters. We can't play against another top 100 team without them just dashboarding if they lose.

Other than that, the only play in this game is actually really, really fun.

Might buy this.
Sidenote- I love how Lebron is wearing the Lebron 8 South Beach shoes in the sceenshot.

$15???

Thx but no thx, EA!

@MLC $15 is a good price I think considering how much it was last year but I have seen last years really cheap now in some stores and online.

Wouldn't this be better as DLC for the current NBA Jam? Why release it as a standalone product?

On other hand, why isn't it a disc-based game? The first one was on disc, and it sold just fine.

Can't we at least get a disc-based version for the Wii?

@tendoboy1984 - I don't think the first one did sell that well. A lot of people didn't want to pay $50 for what was originally going to be a downloadable title.

Making it a standalone title gives them a much larger potential market for sales.

@Mcmax3000

Then they don't have to charge $50 for it. Not every disc-based game has to cost $50. EA could have released it on disc as a budget title. Limiting it to download-only will just decrease potential sales, since not everyone uses Xbox Live or PSN.

So they can charge $15 on XBL and PSN, but they have to charge $40-$50 if it's on a disc? Can't publishers set their own prices for disc-based games?

aww! anyone else want the HUGE heads?

Cool. For some reason, I'm sure people will still complain about the price.

I still think it's hilarious (and sad) when NBA Elite was announced, and EA said they were dropping the "Live" title off the series, some people were saying "Good, because it's not just exclusive to XBox Live now, it should have a title change."

Completely missing the fact that the name had absolutely nothing to do with XBox Live, and dated back to the SNES days.

And while I liked NBA Jam back in the day, I would love to see a new NBA Hangtime (very similiar formula, but different.)

I'm glad I waited. I'll be picking this up. I wish I didn't have to wait until October, though.

This might be just the inner sneakerhead in me, but Lebron is wearing south beach Lebron 8's. A highly exclusive shoe. Not that anybody cares though.

I'm an alley-oop whore, so team on fire would make me so op.

Does the On Fire Edition include a special mode where you just sit and watch Chris Bosh cry while LeBron James storms off the court without bothering to respectfully shake the hands and congratulation those that proved, for the record, that he will never be as good as Michael Jordan?

If not, I'm not interested.

The original 360/PS3 version is beginning to look like more and more of a terrible deal....

how about roster updates? a holes.

I like this post, not because of the game, but because it reminded me of how Lebron and the Heat went down in flames in the Finals.

"and the game claims to have an overhauled, cheaper AI"

Fixed.

Sweet, I was waiting for the disc version to drop in price... and then completely forgot about it. Now I'll just wait for this I guess.

It better have cross team selections. I want to have a team of Carmello and Lebron or Iverson and Shaq. You know, just to mix it up from time to time.

All the other changes should have been in the game in the first place.

Hi, my name is Gunballs and I'm addicted to cosmetic surgery.. err... back on Hangtime I gave birth to a chickenman named Cornelius. He had no power and no dunking skill, but he was lightning quick and could shoot the 3 like nobody's business.

This time I want a liger named Hubert who can do back flip slam jam dunks STRAIGHT TO MY HEART.

EA really just crapped all over this.

First, they kept the game "exclusive" to the Wii just long enough to get into Nintendo's E3 conference last year. Who knows if they were already planning to not have it be exclusive at that point or not but I'd really like to hear Iwata or Reggie's opinion on the situation.

Then when they do reveal it for the other systems, its bigger and better.

Now this.