
Ronnie 2K has posted a couple of Tweets here and here answering questions about the 66 game schedule being patched into NBA 2K12. Ronnie has confirmed that NBA Today will reflect the lockout shortened 66 game schedule, while mentioning that it is impossible to implement for My Player, Association and Online Association. NBA Today games are currently following the original 2011/2012 season schedule.
For what it’s worth, EA Sports patched the abbreviated 50 game schedule for the lockout shortened 1998/1999 season into NBA Live 99’s Season Mode, which led to speculation that 2K Sports might be able to do the same with NBA 2K12. It is understandable that they cannot, however; beyond any technical limitations there’s also the tricky situation with multiseason play in Association and My Player, which would need to revert to 82 games from year two onwards. Selecting the 50 game schedule in NBA Live 99’s basic multiseason mode – the precursor of Franchise and Dynasty Mode – locked the user to playing 50 games for each of the ten years. Such a situation would likely be unappealing to most NBA 2K12 players, ultimately detracting from the realism in the long run.
Its primarly because 2k has gotten really lazy. Its impossible for us to edit the schedule, but 2k can easily do it because they made the file. EA was able to do it because they just went in and update the schedule file, just as a few people still do for both Madden 08 and Live 08 today. Another ridiculous act from 2k, i guess its because they don’t have any competition. Can we hurry up and bring Live back so 2k can get back to how they were.
But I do like and understand what Andrew said!
I read a comment over on Operation Sports that basically said you never want to hear a developer say something is impossible, though given the circumstances it could be difficult to implement properly without causing other problems. Adding a 66 game schedule option also presents other problems with multiplayer mode, as I said. I too hope that EA can bounce back in a big way, I feel competition is good for both sides.