Xbox 360 and PS3 sports gamers shell out money for annual releases with the usually well-founded hope that the publisher will be kind enough to release free downloadable roster updates when major in-season trades and injuries shake up the makeup of the teams.

However, those who bought EA’s retro arcade-style basketball game NBA Jam will be stuck with Carmelo Anthony on the Nuggets and Deron Williams on the Jazz until the publisher releases a sequel.

Pasta Padre quotes EA on the matter:

“There have been a lot of questions about a title or roster update and we wanted to tackle this head on. Our priority for JAM on the XBOX 360 and PS3 was to deliver HD graphics and online play to round out the great gameplay that defines the franchise. For us to also include roster and title update possibilities, we would have sacrificed quality in those key areas and thus made the difficult decision not to include them.”

Judging from the statement, developers who started working right now to switch a few major players around would have somehow retroactively made the game worse at release.

EA Sports Bails on NBA Jam Support [Pasta Padre via Kotaku]

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