March Madness fans, you may want to close your ears for this announcement: EA Sports is discontinuing the NCAA Basketball franchise effective as of right now.

This is according to EA’s fiscal filings filed on February 8th which includes no NCAA basketball game included for the fiscal year 2011 and was confirmed by GameInformer via EA Sports senior director of communications David Tinson who said, “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.”

This now leaves a gaping hole in the NCAA Basketball simulation market, as 2K has been out of the business since early 2008, and now EA Sports is not publishing a title either, meaning there will not be another NCAA Basketball game for now and into the near future.

What is interesting is how a massive market like NCAA Basketball which includes hundreds of colleges, and millions of students and fans, continued to consistently under produce and not rake in any profits for EA Sports or 2K.

So what do you guys think about this announcement? Should there be no NCAA Basketball game at all? Or should EA or 2K rethink their strategy and attack with a new business plan for the title? All I can say is a major market like NCAA Basketball will have somebody stepping in to make some money, but who will it be?

http://www.gamesthirst.com/2010/02/12/ea-sports-discontinues-ncaa-basketball/

Wow. I know the Wii version got discontinued, but I didn't think the other versions were. Can't they just include NCAA rosters in their NBA game? As downloadable content perhaps?

Part of me wants to say "EA hates making money confirmed." but another part of me says otherwise.

That would be a very good idea and could be the solution.

EA should cut costs and just put out a 360 version only. Maybe do it once every two years to insure their target market will purchase the game that year and try to update it through downloads and possibly DLC that costs money.

Its possible the lawsuit against the NCAA has something to do with this. A former UCLA player ED O'Bannon recently filed a suit against the NCAA for using player likeness in the games. The NCAA tried to get the suit dismissed but I believe as of last week a judge ok'd it go forward in court.