NBA

This is less a single franchise than the long reign of Visual Concepts' NBA 2K, the basketball simulation that outlasted nearly every rival and now functions as the sport's default video game. The yearly run from NBA 2K9 to NBA 2K26 charts the genre's drift toward photorealism, deep MyCareer storytelling, and the microtransaction economics that fans love to argue about.

Around that core sit the alternatives the catalog remembers: NBA Live's stubborn challenge from EA, and the arcade lineage of NBA Jam and the Playgrounds games, which throw out realism for two-on-two showboating and flaming dunks. The split is the real story here. One series chases the exact feel of an NBA broadcast while the others chase the feel of a schoolyard, and the franchise is healthier for having both.

The NBA franchise spans 25 games in the CrossBinge catalog.