Rumor: New NBA Jam game coming to Wii @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on January 04, 2010

News: Boom-shaka-laka!

ESPN.com's Jon Robinson is reporting that "sources" inside EA Sports have confirmed the company plans to bring an "updated version" of arcade favorite NBA Jam to the Wii very soon.

The only other detail revealed by the article, and Robinson's sources, was that the possible NBA Jam reboot would be a retail release. So if this game does exist, it will likely be much more than a simple port of a 17-year old arcade game.

However, their are various bites of information floating around the Internet that seem to corroborate Mr. Robinson's reporting.

First, instead of a standard denial, EA Sports confirmed to both IGN and Kotaku that a new EA Sports title will be announced on January 11. On it's own, this is meaningless, but combined with the fact that EA Sports recently hired NBA Jam creator Mark Turmell, the pieces start coming together.

And those pieces also include a new NBA Jam trademark application filed by the NBA with the US Patent and Trademark Office on September 3, 2009. Suffice to say, something is going on with the NBA Jam brand and a new game is definitely not out of the question.

The last game in the NBA Jam series was released for the PS2 and Xbox by Acclaim in 2003. Since then, the franchise that launched the "arcade sports" style of games (including NFL Blitz and EA's now-retired NBA Street series) has laid dormant.

With a President who loves basketball in the White House (and thus, would make a killer unlockable character), I say it's high time NBA Jam made it's glorious return.

source: ESPN.com