EA to grab NBA Jam licence?

American sports broadcaster ESPN is reporting that EA is preparing to announce its capture of cherished retro games franchise NBA Jam.

Midway’s NBA Jam was both an arcade and 16bit hit in the early ‘90s, shunning the simulation approach of rival titles in favour of an arcadey two-on-two approach.

Special abilities were in abundance, as were a range of colourful and recognisable hidden celebrity characters.

Though there is no concrete information on this as of yet, if true it’s reasonable to assume that EA would pursue the same strategy with the NBA Jam license as it has done with Madden and NASCAR in recent times, preferring a slimmed-down digital release to a full-price retail version.

ESPN claims that the game is currently in development for Wii and that an announcement is planned for later this month.