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RealSports Basketball is the only title in the RealSports series that was announced and never released. Atari decided to contract the programming of the game to Roklan who had recently done Crazy Climber for them. Although the game was finalized and given to Atari, they ultimately decided not to publish it. There's no concrete explanation as to why this was, but there may have been some concerns about the gameplay not being as polished as it should be. Earlier versions of the game had a referee who would run up and down the side of the court calling fouls (his graphics are still in the game code, just like at least one player animation and an Atari logo that isn't used), but was taken out due to lack of space. The referee can be seen in early promotional shots of the game, so the decision to remove him must have been made quite late. According to programmer Joe Gaucher, the referee was interactive and would mess with the players and run alongside them, but that he had to take him out due to memory constraints. Atari canceled the game before he finished it. While RealSports Basketball is an improvement over the Atari's classic Basketball game, it was too little too late. Obviously Atari had some doubts about this title, but it remained on Atari's schedule until late fall of 1983 meaning that they may have been reconsidering releasing it. In the end they decide not to.
Although technically speaking this is still a PAL game, the final version was meant to be released as a NTSC game.
The silver cart, box and manual are reproductions from 2002 with permission of programmer Joe Gaucher.
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