Tournament EditionNBA Jam is a basketball video game developed and published by Midway for arcades in 1993.

The release of NBA Jam popularized a subgenre of basketball based around fast action and exaggerated realism, a formula Midway later applied to the sports of hockey (NHL Open Ice and NHL Hitz), American football (NFL Blitz), and baseball (MLB Slugfest).

NBA Jam is a two-on-two basketball video game featuring NBA-licensed teams and digitized likenesses of real players.

Gameplay is exaggerated instead of realistic: players can jump extremely high and make slam dunks that defy both human capabilities and the laws of physics.

Additionally, if a player makes three baskets in a row, the character becomes "on fire" and has an unlimited turbo and increased shooting precision.

[8] The game was devised after Midway's previous arcade release Total Carnage failed to meet sales expectations.

Lead designer and programmer Turmell wanted to develop a game with a wider appeal and decided to mix the digitized graphics of some of Midway's previous titles to create a title similar to Midway's previous basketball game Arch Rivals.

[10] In one of Midway's original pitch videos to the NBA, they stated that they planned on including various additional features.

These included different camera angles, tips from coaches, instant replays and a first-person view on fast breaks.

[11] Turmell recounted, "My big ideas in NBA Jam were to do the spectacular dunks and two-on-two basketball, but the whole game was very much a team effort.

[13] The Saturn version took longer to develop, in part because of the greater complexity of the hardware, but also because Iguana Entertainment did not have access to the Sega Graphics Library operating system (which was used to facilitate the Saturn versions of Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop, among other games).

[13] The Game Gear and PlayStation ports were programmed by Iguana UK employee Chris Kirby, with the Sega Saturn version coded by Darren Tunnicliff.

[9] In the United States, it topped the monthly RePlay charts for upright arcade cabinets from April 1993[27][1][28] through summer[29][30][31] to October 1993.

[37][38] In Japan, Game Machine listed NBA Jam on their August 15, 1993 issue as the fourth most successful upright arcade unit of the month.

[4] As of 2019[update], the Genesis and Super NES versions sold a combined 6 million copies worldwide.

They praised its graphics, sounds, and the four-player mode, and remarked that the gameplay is easy to pick up and incredibly fun even for people who don't like sports games.

[15] Reviewing the Genesis version, Mike Weigand commented that "The voices are fuzzy and the colors are a bit bland", but that the game is still very fun.

"[58] A reviewer for Next Generation, after enumerating the improvements Tournament Edition offers over the original game, concluded, "What does all this equal?

"[64] Electronic Gaming Monthly's two sports reviewers highly praised the PlayStation version as a precise conversion with good enhancements.

However, the reviewer for Maximum added that it nonetheless failed to offer any game-changing features that would make buying it worthwhile to anyone who already owned the Genesis or Super NES version.

"[70] In 2018, Complex named NBA Jam Tournament Edition 44th on their "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time.

[73] In addition to the arcade version, NBA Jam Tournament Edition was ported to the Super NES, Genesis, 32X, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and Atari Jaguar, with the PlayStation port serving as a North American launch title.

After Midway produced 250,000 Genesis cartridges, the developer learned that the flash memory used for savegames only works if games are played in a specific order.

An update called NBA Maximum Hangtime was subsequently released for the arcade, and the game was ported to home systems.

Original NBA Jam creator Mark Turmell was hired to work on this new version in conjunction with EA Canada.

Voiced by Tim Kitzrow, the announcer is reminiscent of Marv Albert and has contributed numerous memorable lines to the basketball lexicon.

[79] The NBA Jam script was written solely by Jon Hey, although Kitzrow has stated that the lines were largely improvised.

[80] NBA Jam also incorporates a slogan from Spike Lee's alter-ego in his 1986 film She's Gotta Have It, Mars Blackmon, who was also featured in a Nike basketball shoe television commercial at the time.

The 2010 game features a nod to this particular piece of commentary, when the commentator (Kitzrow reprising the role) sometimes exclaims "It's gotta be the shoes!"

The likeness of George Clinton was used as the character "P. Funk" in the console versions of NBA Jam Tournament Edition.