MLB 11 The Show is about bringing the biggest, most dramatic moments in baseball directly to your living room. Ever wonder what it’s like to be on the mound with the big game all on the line? The entire stadium awaiting your next move? Then “Torture” by MLB 11 The Show was made for you. San Francisco Giants Ace Tim Lincecum is in a jam. It’s late in the game with the bases loaded and Phillies Super Slugger Ryan Howard is coming to the plate. Worse yet, with two outs and a full count, he’s got the greenlight to swing for the fences. One pitch is about to change the momentum of the game and the season for both teams.

MLB 11 The Show continues to showcase the real-life intensity and drama of Major League Baseball. Check back soon for more MLB 11 The Show announcements. And don’t forget: Reserve and Purchase MLB 11 The Show and receive 30 FREE days of MLB.TV on your PS3!

Welcome to The Show!

New to this year’s version of The Show is having real and fully functional stadium specific jumbotrons and out of town scoreboards. What this means is that each MLB jumbotron was duplicated by our artists to be authentic and look exactly like the real thing. The jumbotrons now show the team’s lineups, statistics, and full video boards, and as you can see by the attention to detail they do they look amazing! Now you check out your favorite team’s jumbotron and all of its bells and whistles. This accuracy gives you the feeling that you are watching a real-life baseball game, it’s that detailed!

Last year we added quite a bit to our skies, stadium shadows, and night time look, but this year we wanted to make MLB 11 The Show even more dynamic so we set out to add rain and fog. The rain varies over the course of the game, and has a definite visual impact on the field. You will see the stadium lights come on in overcast days, and weather is tuned based on region and time of year. In MLB 11 night skies received a major facelift and now vary from late afternoon, to warm sunsets with sunlit clouds, to cool twilight colors, and finally full night time affects. The time of day that the sun sets is now calculated based on the latitude and longitude of the stadium, the month, date, and year, and the time zone, so that your season game’s look and feel reflect the real world.

Adding stadium specific jumbotrons and out of town scoreboards was an important request by our community and fans, so we’re very happy that we were able to accomplish these new features. Our goal is always to make your favorite team, stadium, or fans look, feel, and sound just like the real thing and it’s definitely reflected in MLB 11 The Show. We appreciate your feedback and listen to our fans, as we try to make the best game possible year after year. Thanks for your continued support, we hope you enjoy MLB 11 The Show when it arrives on March 8, 2011. Be sure to visit us at www.TheShowNation.com.

Welcome to The Show!

Beginning with last year’s version of The Show, we wanted to make the game even more accurate. In MLB 10: The Show, we have taken it further and added more to your gaming experience. New for this year’s edition are real-time players in the dugouts and bullpens, fireworks, rally towels, thundersticks, working digital and analog clocks, and much more. All these realistic enhancements to the game make MLB 10: The Show feel and sound like you are actually at the ballpark. Throughout this post we will focus on the stadium enchantments and how they make The Show come alive!

Real-Time Players in The Dugout and Bullpen
New to this year’s version of The Show is having the dugouts and bullpens full to capacity in real time. What this means is that players will be seen in actual game time sitting on the bench, standing, leaning on the railings and moving around. The players will even react to the action on the field, so if a foul ball comes in the dugout, they will quickly move out of the way. You’ll also see bullpen activity – with pitchers getting up, stretching and starting to loosen up. Managers will be seen giving instruction to the bench players and calling out to the fielders in play. This realism gives you, the user, the element that you are involved in a real-life baseball game.

Stadiums Experiences (Fireworks/HR/splash counters/clocks)
Last year we added quite a bit to the stadium experience, but this year we wanted to make MLB 10 stand out even more. We set out researching how the stadiums looked, finding the little nuances of each stadium. If you’re going to include fireworks, they have to look and sound real. Each fireworks explosion is designed to recreate the actual fireworks display that is seen when the home team hits a homerun or wins the game.

Another area of detail with the stadiums was adding in the famous Home Run Splash Counter in San Francisco. This also includes a special Splash Camera which follows the ball as it splashes into McCovey Cove. Also added to our stadiums are working clocks which show the actual time from game start until finish. There are digital and analog clocks throughout the stadiums, so check out the time as you play the game.

Crowd Detail (Reaching over the rails, thundersticks, rally towels, detail)
This year we added so much more to our crowds and their animations. The crowd in MLB 10 will now react to a ball hit into the stands either on foul balls or home runs. They will also reach over the railings to try and grab a ground ball that is hit into foul territory. Play The Show and you may actually see a fan take a tumble over the wall. Another thing we wanted to spruce up is crowd accessories. We decided to add in thundersticks, rally towels and the ever-present “cowbell” in Tampa. These little touches of realism add up to make MLB 10: The Show a home run!

Final Thoughts
As you can see, we went into the making of MLB 10 asking the question, “What can we do to make this game more realistic?” Our community and fans wanted even more detail and realism. If your favorite team, stadium, or crowd does things a certain way, we want to make sure it’s reflected in The Show. This attention to detail is what makes us stand out. From new fireworks, splash counters, thundersticks and more, we want you to feel the sights and sounds of real live baseball. We appreciate your feedback and will always listen to our fans as we try to make the best game possible. Thanks for your time and we hope you enjoy MLB 10: The Show and the realism we bring to you.

Have you ever hit a home run to win a game or made a diving catch in the field and wanted to make a movie to show off to everyone? In MLB 09 The Show, it’s possible and very simple. Here’s how it works.

In the game, select a replay you would like to record as a movie. You can either use the regular instant replay or our replay vault (As a side note, replay vault allows you to go back to any inning or player at any time to get the exact play you want). Now that you have selected the specific replay you want to record, you can get started. On the replay screen, you will notice a notification in the upper left-hand corner that lets you know that pressing the L3 button is for recording/stopping the movie. This is important because the user must press the L3 button to start the recording process, then again to stop recording. All replay menu controls are usable like fast forwarding and rewinding your replay to get the exact shot you are looking for. You can also zoom in and out, and move the cursor and camera around to get the proper focus and angles in your movie. This will help you to find the perfect play or spot in a particular play that you wish to record. You can record as many movies, of the same replay, as you like. There is no limit, other than your hard drive of course. All movies are saved out as MP4s, and depending on your hard drive size, you can record numerous movies to showcase to everyone.

Now once you have finished recording your movie, it will be automatically saved to the XMB. You can then go to the XMB to see your newly recorded movie. It is that simple (note: you must be back out of the game and in the XMB to actually view the movie…sorry, can’t view them while still in a game). Once in the XMB, look under the Video section to see your newly created movie folder. The initial folder will show the title MLB 09 The Show – enter it to view your created movies. Your new movie will have a file name of the exact play, date and time of recording and length of recording. From the XMB bar, you can copy this movie onto a Memory Stick or USB drive and take it to your PC to further edit, or post to any website for your friends viewing.

With the addition of saving interactive replays as movies for MLB 09 The Show, you now have the ability to showcase your great plays or not so great plays into movies. It is a very easy way to let your friends know what type of player you are. So have fun and enjoy making movies of your gameplay in this new feature for MLB 09 The Show. We appreciate your feedback and know that your ideas help to make the game the best it can possibly be. Thanks for your time and we hope you enjoy MLB 09 The Show and making movies!

And to get you ready for the game’s release on Tuesday, here’s a nice chunk of MLB 09 The Show gameplay to drool over:

One of the main things we wanted to accomplish this year is to add as much realism to the stadiums and the crowd as possible. We’ve listened to what the community has been telling us: “We want that same experience that we get at a real ballgame, the look and sounds of the crowd, accurate and detailed stadiums, the smell of popcorn and hotdogs, etc.” Well we can’t add in smells (or can we?) but you can imagine. We devoted many, many hours of research to get everything as realistic and accurate in detail as possible in hopes of making it seem like you are actually at the game. We want your friend, spouse or whomever, to walk in the room while you are playing the game and say ,“Hey what game are you watching on TV.” That’s how real it is! In this blog we will go over a few of the things that help to make MLB 09 The Show the most realistic baseball game ever.

Mascots
As both kids and adults we’ve laughed at, and had fun with, team mascots. They always make us feel young and truly enhance the ambiance of a live baseball game. This year in The Show you get to watch as your favorite mascots come to life. Thanks to the brilliant work by The Show’s character artists (and some interesting MOCAP sessions) you can see the Phillie Phanatic get the crowd fired up, Mr. Met dance on top of the dugouts and Bernie Brewer slide down his slide to the amusement of everyone at the game. You can also spot the Swinging Friar cheering by the rally bell, The Bird getting Orioles’ fans out of their seats and Wally the Green Monster leading a “Let’s go, Red Sox” chant. In over 20 stadiums, these mascots will help entertain and make each game more real and enjoyable. So whether it’s razzing the visiting players, having a dance competition with a few lucky (or not so lucky) fans or just trying to score a few laughs, the mascots will undoubtedly be something fun to watch out for in MLB 09 The Show.

Jumbotrons and Videos
For years we have talked about sprucing up our in-game jumbotrons. Yes, we did say sprucing. This year we took it upon ourselves to view every MLB stadium and get a good idea of what each stadium showed. Combing through countless hours of MLB video and artist photos we got a good feel of how we wanted to layout realistic jumbotrons. As you will see, the new jumbotrons throughout the MLB stadiums in The Show will show full statistics, lineups, pitcher matchups and anything you might see at a real MLB game. Another must-have feature that consumers asked for was added this year – game related videos. Go to any real life baseball game and watch your favorite home town pitcher strikeout a batter or favorite slugger hit a home run. Well, what do you see on the jumbotron? A really cool video that rocks out! From homerun and RBI videos, to “get loud” crowd meter and “stand up” videos which pump up the crowd, all these elements of realism go into making MLB 09 The Show true to life.

Crowds
Every development cycle we find little things we’d like to improve on. One thing in particular this year was to get a better and more accurate crowd. What I mean by this is getting fans to actually wear the appropriate clothing, cheer at the right moments with the right level of sound and show up to the ballpark in real to life attendance figures. To do this we watched many hours of MLB games to view the crowds and get an idea of attendance levels for each team versus every other team it could possibly face. For example, a Red Sox/Yankees game should always be packed, and depending on where it is, Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium, there should be a mix of both fans. Now if you’re playing a game down in Florida with the Marlins, well you’re not going to see as many fans and you just might see more fans of the visiting team on certain days or nights. Crowd accuracy was a big thing added this year and we wanted to get as much detail into it as possible.

Another area we wanted to get more accurate was the clothing crowds wore to each game throughout an MLB season and fans leaving during a game. First, in dealing with fans’ clothing, we wanted to make sure they weren’t wearing t-shirts and shorts in April in, Detroit! Each team was charted out by looking at weather forecasts for each city and every month that a baseball teams plays. So now you will see fans in pants and warm jackets at appropriate times of an MLB season. Maybe even a few earmuffs! As well as in San Diego, most fans will be in warm weather attire, but once the sun sets, break out the jackets…burr!! What you might wear at a game for your favorite team is what our crowd will wear.

Secondly, in dealing with crowds leaving early from a game, we have gone through each team, their attendance levels, scores of games, who they are playing at the time and figured out when they would get up and say enough is enough, my team is getting blown out! As you can imagine, there are the die-hards out there and we track it, so no matter what, these fans always stay and support their team. And finally, we have added fans walking up, down and in and out of the aisles throughout each MLB stadium. Fans will also be seen milling around the concession areas and actual vendors are walking around the stadiums. So grab a hot dog and soda, because the little things matter to our team and hopefully you’ll notice these little details as well.

NEW LED and K boards
When you head out to the ballparks these days, you notice that each stadium has a unique look and feel. What we wanted to do is replicate this for our fans by having all the LED boards and K signs that real stadiums have. Fans can view every statistical category imaginable throughout our stadiums with the new LED boards that range from batter and pitcher stats to lineups and pitch count boards. Watch as the boards change and give you updated information for every batter and pitcher. Also, each stadium either has a section where the fans put up K signs or an LED K sign board. These track every K for the home team pitcher so look for this as you rack up the strikeouts. Hopefully you stat junkies out there will love the little added details and accurate statistical displays throughout each and every stadium!

Lighting
When you play baseball, you want to feel like you’re watching a game, not a video game. For MLB09, the lighting methods were rebuilt from ground up to make everything fit together naturally. Employing Global Lighting techniques, we light the stadium using the sky, then turn around and light the players with the sky and stadium. This makes players feel like they belong to the part of the stadium they are standing in front of. Keep an eye on color, reflections and highlights on players as they move through the environment. Also watch the dirt as every step and slide of a long game shows itself, and as chalk lines get disturbed. Day time games vary over your season, from the soft feel of a cloudy sky, to the harsh rays of a clear summer day, and even overcast days if the time and place is right. Night games are now true to life as we capture those long shadows which stretch across the field at the start, stretching farther until finally the sun goes down and the stadium is fully lit by its own lights. How dark it is at the start of the game depends on the day of the year so don’t be surprised if your spring training game is dark at 7pm. All of these little details add together to help immerse you in the game, and bring you back to the core – playing hardball.

Player Accessories
A key theme throughout this development cycle was realism, from stadiums to true-to-life batter stances and pitcher motions. We think we have it nailed. One area we wanted to really focus on this year was the player accessories and beefing it up. We have added eye black, glasses, wrist tape, and batting gloves in the back pockets to name a few. These are some of the player accessories that add to the realistic nature of our game. When you look at your favorite player and you see an arm band or shin guard you will know that we took the time to get that in the game. Focusing on the little things this year and listening to our fans, we have tried to get the details down pat.

Final Thoughts
You may have noticed in this blog I have mentioned realism quite a bit. Well there is a reason for this. The MLB 09 team really wanted to convey the sights and sounds of baseball to you, our fans, in the best possible fashion. So when you are playing with your favorite team or player, check out all these details mentioned here. We know you’ll love it.

We appreciate your feedback and will always listen to our fans as we try to make the best game possible. Thanks for your time and we hope you enjoy MLB 09 The Show and the realism we bring to you. OK, that is the last time I will say realism…oops. Sorry, I said it again.

Hi everyone, I’m Greg Batalucco, Designer for the MLB team and I want to give you a first glance at this new PS3-exclusive feature, one our team really wanted to add to MLB ’08 THE SHOW.

All plays in the game are now easy to access and view in the Replay Vault menu. Whether it’s a game winning home run, a leaping catch at the wall, or a diving play at shortstop for the out, Replay Vault gives you the power to relive that moment again and again, at any time.

All you have to do is pause the game, select Replay Vault from the menu, and you can search for a play by inning, player or team. Say you’re in the 7th inning and want to check out a particular Home run that occurred back in the 2nd inning. You can pause your ongoing game, go back in the Replay Vault menu to the 2nd inning and view how you went deep to take the lead. Or, say you want to see a play by your favorite player, Ryan Howard; for instance, the Replay Vault lets you use Replay by player to pick the replay out quickly. It’s all right there and easy to access. If you decide you want to see all the plays that occurred by the team you’re playing with, select Replay by Team. You can sort through each team’s offensive and defensive plays to find exactly what you are looking for. Or you can select All Plays and view every play that has occurred in the game up to that point. Once you’ve found the play you’re searching for, simply select it and replay it, it’s that easy!

Even if your game is finished we allow you to access Replay Vault at the End of Game, so that you will not miss out on anything you might want to rub in your friends face. Replay Vault gives you, the user, an easy way to view all the plays of the game and check them out over and over again. Enjoy MLB ‘08 THE SHOW and Replay Vault on March 4th and in the meantime, look for more details on new and exciting features from MLB ’08 THE SHOW here on the PlayStation.Blog.