NBA 2K13's developers at Visual Concepts have a sharp focus on making the best-playing entry in the NBA 2K franchise, and they demonstrated this year's changes with new gameplay footage in a video released today.

NBA 2K13's developers at Visual Concepts have a sharp focus on making the best-playing entry in the NBA 2K franchise, and they demonstrated this year's changes with new gameplay footage in a video released today.

The most significant departure from past NBA 2K games is the shift of dribble moves to the right stick, where they join shooting controls. It's part of Visual Concepts' long-running desire to get NBA 2K players to use the right stick, instead of a face button, for shooting. You can use the stick to protect the ball from a defender, or throw an elbow his way to create some space, all with the right stick.

Another important change is the differentiation of players by size. "Bigger defenders guarding smaller guys really come through now," said assistant producer Jerson Sapida, noting that players will have the ability to take advantage of mismatches. Physicality also comes into play for collisions, since NBA 2K13's physics system takes momentum into account so that a player going up for a shot can get realistically bumped in some painful-looking ways.

NBA 2K13 launches on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Wii, and PSP on October 2nd. Check out our full preview for an in-depth exploration of Visual Concepts' improvements to gameplay.