Take-Two and Electronic Arts will both continue to produce NBA licensed video games, as both companies have signed extensions of their licensing deals with the National Basketball Association. Prior to the extensions being confirmed, rumors of an exclusive deal being discussed turned out not to be the way the deal went in the end.

Take Two and 2K Sports with their NBA2K series clearly continue to have the upper hand in their battle against EA, so much so that last year EA elected not to even attempt a release of what it thought was a new direction in the EA NBA offering (which turned out to be a disaster). Instead, EA released a new re-tooled NBA Jam offering on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii that turned out to be quite good.

NBA 2K11, on the other hand, sold over 5 million copies without any real competition from EA other than the NBA Jam offering. This year, 2K will release NBA 2K12 and EA will release another enhanced and upgraded download-only version of NBA Jam. They will again sit this year out while Tiburon (who took over the task of creating a new NBA game for EA Sports) will continue to work on the company’s 2013 release.

In addition to video games, both publishers intend to look at other video game possibilities for the NBA license, but no actual specific plans were announced by either publisher.