High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The predecessor of the NBA Live series was the NBA PLAYOFFS series, which featured Lakers vs. Celtics, released first in 1989 for MS-DOS-compatible PCs and later adapted for consoles in early 1991 for the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis. This game was played from a horizontal view (while later versions moved to an isometric view before ultimately moving to 3D on newer consoles). The game was one of the first to feature an NBA license, containing both real NBA teams and player likenesses and signature moves. Details such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's goggles are clearly visible, and Michael Jordan's "Air Reverse Layup" is animated with very high accuracy. Detailed player numbers were also visible. The game featured only eight of the sixteen teams that qualified for the NBA playoffs that year, as well as both NBA All-Star teams.