NBA Live 14 Executive Producer: ‘No more screw ups, no more excuses’

In a lengthy open letter to basketball fans, NBA Live 14 Executive Producer Sean O'Brien was blunt about his position on bringing back EA Sports' storied basketball franchise. His message was quite clear: "No more screw ups and definitely no more excuses."

That seemed to be the driving point of his post in which he talked about his background in game development, while touching on the overall vision he has of NBA Live.

"I want NBA LIVE to be an authentic NBA simulation rooted in the sport and lifestyle of basketball," O'Brien explained. "My first priority was to focus on core gameplay. We needed to capture the essence of half-court basketball, providing 1-on-1 isolation both in the perimeter and the post, the 2-on-2 chess match that is the pick and roll, while still offering the gamer the opportunity to push the basketball in transition and have the control required to get the ball into the lane to either take the ball to the rim or find an open teammate if the defense collapses."

O'Brien then touched on the new bouncTek technology that will be used to power NBA Live 14's impressive dribbling system. Shown off at E3, NBA Live 14 looks to offer each NBA superstar their "own set of dribble moves, animations and real world speed and skills that you'd expect." While at E3 we had the opportunity to check out bouncTek; you can read our hands-on preview here.

"The vision is a simple one: To create a great basketball game exclusively for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4," he continued. "My commitment to our fans is to be open, honest and transparent about what we're doing, how we're doing it as well as why we're doing it. Obviously, with NBA 2K in the picture, I can't reveal our entire feature set, show you just how good 5-on-5 gameplay is starting to play and just how amazing our visuals are coming together this early in the summer.  But that will come.

"All I can say is that I'm extremely proud of the NBA LIVE team and where this game is as we approach our internal alpha. What we're doing isn't easy and I'm really excited about the progress we've made. I believe that our direction is the right one," O'Brien concluded. "The ball is in our court and we need to execute."

NBA Live 14 is exclusive to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4; it is set to release in 2014.