Nate McDonald, a producer for NBA Live 2009 recently talked about some upcoming features to be included in NBA Live 09 that work together to enhance the overall gaming experience and increase the realism when it comes to player behavior.

NBA Live 365

First up we have the new “NBA Live 365″ service which will allow you to update your player’s “DNA” (we’ll come to this in a sec) on a daily basis using analytics data from real-world games and teams that evaluate how a player is scoring, how the team plays together and the tendencies associated with each individual player including whether they drive left or right & where they tend to shoot from on the court.

Whenever you load up the game you have the option of pulling all the data down to your console (updated on a daily basis) through “NBA Live 365″ so you know you are playing with the current attributes for each player and team.

Just like the real NBA game, players get injured, free agents sign late, great players go cold and no-names breakthrough, and all of this will be updated on a daily basis to keep the game fresh and up to date.

If you don’t like the latest update (lets say you favorite player is now out due to injury) then you can use the appropriately named “*NBA Rewind” feature to set all the attributes according to a previous update you pulled down, right back to the release data that came on the disk, and you also have the ability to completely over-ride everything and make up the information yourself.

Player DNA

The “Player DNA” is a digital representation of what actions a player would traditionally take, whether this be Post up, Spot up etc… It will make the players act more like their real-life counterparts by using the statistical data collected on their play styles.

Included in the “Player DNA” is player tendencies, if they receive the ball in a specific location on the court what are they most likely going to do based on the analytics data from previous games, It’s not about what is necessarily the *best* move and more about what the player is likely to do based on past reactions.

Streaks

When it comes to streaks you have Shots and you have Impacts, Shots are how many shots the player is expected to make in any given game based on data from the past 5 weeks (it takes the data from the last 10 games and compares it to how well they normally play), if they make more shots than predicted then their streak temperature will increase (it’s a line with “hot” at the top and “cold” down the bottom), and conversely if they do badly then their streak temperature will go down.

This works exactly the same for Impacts but it is based on rebounds instead of shots, you can also bring up information on people who are currently experiencing the biggest streaks (for both Shots & Impacts) over the last 10 games, which can influence who you will want to take into a game.

Team DNA

The “Team DNA” shows you the makeup of the entire team based on the culmination of all this information, so you can see how your team is currently doing or predicted to do before going into a game. In addition to the team data, the roster will also be updated to match which players are out due to injury, team changes and more.

All of this data is great not only because your team better reflects the current NBA climate, but you can also use it against your opponent by looking at heat-maps of where the players are likely to be on-court, what plays they are likely to use, and how well they have been playing.

It’s also great as a guide to help you make decisions on what plays you should make and where your players aught to be (to lesson the chance of a crushing defeat!).

As I noted earlier, all of this data can be over-ridden manually, the updates are an optional download, and you can use the “*NBA Rewind” feature to skip back to any point in the past (data wise) including what was on the original disk when it shipped.

Quick Recap

• “Player DNA” ensures player data reflects their current play style including Tendencies and Streaks
• “Team DNA” gives you an over-view of how a team is doing based on a culmination of “Player DNA”
• Using “NBA Live 365″ there will be optional daily data updates to ensure both Player & Team DNA reflects current real-world stats.
• Roster information will be updated (through “NBA Live 365″) to reflect player & team changes throughout the season.
• Use the “*NBA Rewind” feature to use the data from a previous daily update right back to the date the game was released
• Override any of this information manually to suit how you want to play the game

You can read more information about these new features on the EA Sports NBA Live 09 Developer Blog or read through our other coverage of NBA Live 09.