Brian Ullrich Q&A - June 2nd Edition

The latest Q&A with Brian Ullrich has been posted here in the official forums. This edition covers commentary (interestingly mentioning that Steve Kerr will be part of the team again this year) and player emotions as well as touching on net physics and practicing skills.

Hi Andrew,

I like the fact that player emotions will be more evident this year for NBA Live '09. I think that the developers probably didn't have time to get ol' Reggie Miller in the studio to record color commentary, or maybe they thought that, since they already recorded Kerr's part, that it would be easier just to leave that in for this year and wait until next year to include a more current broadcast team.

I myself will be getting a PS3 before NBA Live '09 comes out and I'm pretty excited.

Too bad that Mr. Ulrich said that not too much will be done with halftime. I just hope that the gameplay will continue to improve and be better than '07 and '08 was in that regard.

i really don't understand why a halftime/timeout show or report would be that important. They always get boring after a while and people end up skipping them.

just a top plays thing seriously makes me so happy. the Kenny Smith thing in 2k7 and the 2k8 DVD thing at the end of the games I love. Even March Madness's 07/08 play of the half and game (ps2) and the NG Live 08's reel at the end of games are imo cool and worth having in the game. Commentary and stuff though...not so much, that would get repetitive.

The more he reveals, the more i'm anticipating this game now. Can't wait for some vids

I think that the developers probably didn't have time to get ol' Reggie Miller in the studio to record color commentary, or maybe they thought that, since they already recorded Kerr's part, that it would be easier just to leave that in for this year and wait until next year to include a more current broadcast team.

I don't know about that, it sounds like Kerr was brought in to record new commentary so presumably it would have been just as easy to bring in a current TNT analyst as it would have been to bring in one of the Suns' top executives. I'd suggest that Kerr's deal with EA Sports is completely seperate to his previous employment with TNT and he was probably used again because he's still under contract.

what they should do is a half time report with charles, ernie and kenny smith
to bring a more realsitc touch to the game, they got another game with play by play action with public enemy's chuck D (Old School Rap Artist for those who dont know). ea sports supposed to be #1 in basketball video games, they got money to get mark jackson marv van gundy cherryl miller another game company is going to make a basket ball game so realistc to the real thing watch then ea is going to go down the drain.......

Kenny Smith is bought by 2k!!! lol

Exactly, though seeing as though their presentation (in terms of commentary and score overlays) isn't specifically branded TNT or ESPN, they could always have a mix with ESPN guys doing the halftime report and Marv heading up the commentary with a fellow TNT announcer. Still, there are other things I'd prefer to see before a big halftime feature, which I'd probably skip a lot of the time anyway.

could someone get Brian to come though because its like when people ask him something on there he barely answers or he always say what they are doing instead of listening to our ideas!!!

I don't think these Q&As are going to get much more detailed than that until it reaches the point where they're going to talk about the game in-depth, ie when the previews start flooding in. Until then, all Brian can do is offer a few snippets and allude to things that will be talked about in due time.

I think that the developers probably didn't have time to get ol' Reggie Miller in the studio to record color commentary, or maybe they thought that, since they already recorded Kerr's part, that it would be easier just to leave that in for this year and wait until next year to include a more current broadcast team.

I don't know about that, it sounds like Kerr was brought in to record new commentary so presumably it would have been just as easy to bring in a current TNT analyst as it would have been to bring in one of the Suns' top executives. I'd suggest that Kerr's deal with EA Sports is completely seperate to his previous employment with TNT and he was probably used again because he's still under contract.

I think Sony's NBA series uses TNT (I know it uses TNT as its scoreboard at least), but not sure about the announcing teams.

According to Wikipedia, Sony's series currently features the Sonics' Kevin Calabro and Mark Jackson on commentary.