By Alexander Villafania

THE NBA video game series from Electronic Arts Sports may perhaps be the most popular sports title in the Philippines. iPlay, the casual games joint venture of e-Games and TV company GMA, is taking the title even further to the online gaming market.

iPlay invited technology and gaming journalists to attend the launch of NBA Street Online, which is reported to be the first massively-multiplayer online sports game of EA’s Canadian development branch.

Details have been withheld until the local launch date but from what has been gathered, EA co-developed the game with a Korean firm, Neowiz.

One Taiwanese company, Gigamedia Limited confirmed in July that it will be distributing the game in China. The existence of the game has only been confirmed through press releases though EA’s official sites have not disclosed the game.

Nonetheless, the NBA Street franchise is well-known game for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube, with the latest console version, NBA Street Homecourt, to be released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation3.

The console game versions are all three-on-three multiplayer basketball games that are set in public courts, thus the name.

Not surprisingly, NBA Street Online could compete directly with Freestyle Online, the first online basketball game in the Philippines distributed by e-Games rival Level-Up! which is also a three-on-three game played on public basketballs courts.