Sports fans,­

For those of you who haven’t heard, Challenge of the Week is back and will going on all year long through MLB 12 The Show. This week features a CC Sabathia signed jersey as our prize giveaway!

Challenge of the Week for March 12th (challenge #2) features an AL East match-up as MLB 12 Canadian cover athlete, Jose Bautista faces Yankees ace CC Sabathia. Bautista is coming off another 40+ home run season, while driving in 103 RBI. Sabathia held opponents to an impressive ERA of 3.00 and cut down 230 batters.

Climb the leaderboard and get as many hits as you can to earn the CC Sabathia signed jersey.

Week #2 begins on Monday March 12th at 5:30am PT.

On the Hill

When we designed the pitching controls, the idea was to promote going through the actual motion of throwing a pitch. In order to do that, we decided to tie the velocity of the pitch to how far you reach back (away from the PS Eye) to set your “potential power” and how fast you swing your arm through to determine your “actual power”. This way, if you try to pitch by just flicking your wrist, sure you can get the Move to recognize that speed, but since you do not pull back during the wind-up, you will not be able to use 100% of your potential power. The difference could be a 93MPH vs a 98MPH fastball. Your accuracy is tied to the on-screen pitcher’s release point. The closer you release the trigger on the Move to that release point, the more accurate the location of the pitch will be. The result is a system that feels very natural and recognizes how much effort you are putting into each pitch and recognizes a very natural release point. There is a definite feeling of satisfaction in “painting the black” that you didn’t feel before.

At the Plate

Batting is even more natural in terms of how we recognize a different type of swing. When we first designed the batting, we simply recognized how quickly you swung the bat in order to consider a swing a “contact”, “normal” or “power” swing. But after about 10 minutes of actually trying it out I realized that this was not natural. A contact swing is not a slower swing, a contact swing is performed by limiting your movement and just slapping at the ball as opposed to reaching back (loading) to get some extra power. So that is how we changed it to work in the game. The game will recognize if you load up or not. If it recognizes that you do not and you just punch at the ball, you will get a contact swing which helps you with contact, but takes away some power. On the flip side, if you load up, it will recognize that you want to drive the ball, and then, how fast you swing will determine how much power is being used. So instead of having a normal swing or a power swing, now it is dynamic. You might swing with a 42 power on one swing, or an 89 on the next. It is totally up to you. One other new feature with the batting is what we call “Full Control”. The Move is synched up with your batter and allows you to move his arms and upper body around pre-pitch to really feel connected to the batter. But to get the Move synched up correctly, you need to start in a traditional batting stance while holding the Move controller upright and still. Once the system recognizes the position it will vibrate to let you know you are synched up. (Note: You do not need to sync up the pre-pitch movement in order to swing. You can do that with or without using the Full Control system)

In the Field

Fielding has a completely new element never before seen in a baseball video game (as far as I know). When fielding with the Move, you have a new responsibility of catching the ball. It is very unnatural to try to navigate a defender around the field with this controller, so when playing with the Move, the AI controls the movement of the fielder for you. But instead of moving, you have to time “catching” the ball. Again using the idea that the trigger is the ball (like mentioned above in pitching), as the ball gets close to you, you need to press and hold the trigger to receive the ball. You will see an indicator under the fielder that goes from Red to Yellow to Green to help you time the catch. If you are too early or too late, the ball will bounce off of your glove for an error. Once you have the ball, you can throw to any base by swiping in a Left, Right, Up, or Down direction and releasing the trigger during the swipe. Each direction represents a base, just like with the analog throwing system. One really cool side-effect from this system is that it unintentionally created some realism. In our non-Move game, a lot of times those hot smashes to the 3rd baseman or even the pitcher got gloves automatically. Now that you are responsible for timing that catch, you see a lot of those shots eat up the defender like you are more likely to see in real life. And if you happen to react quick enough to snag one, you really feel like you earned it.

Running the Bases

The base running controls are something that completely changed from the original design and was actually an idea of the programmer who implemented it. (Go Leo!). Leo came up with the idea of using gestures to navigate runners as a base coach would. So to advance a runner, you gesture the Move in a circular fashion (like a coach sending a runner around third base). To send a runner back, you use a back and forth (left/right/) gesture. And to stop a runner at the next base you just put your hand up like a stop sign which is holding the Move controller horizontally (this same gesture + trigger will stop the runner in his tracks). Very simple, and very easy to remember.

Now for all of you who want to use the Move but don’t want to feel like you need to ice your shoulder after playing a video game, go check the options. We have plenty to satisfy all types of players. I will say this. Being that the Move controls are a totally new way to play the game, there is a definite learning curve. We have tutorials breaking down all of the controls available in the game. Getting your timing down with the pitching and hitting, and remembering the gestures in the heat of the moment will take some getting used to. But once you have it down, if you are like me, you won’t want to play the game any other way.. To play the game any more realistically than this, you will need to put on some cleats and go outside. I hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading!

The game modes in the main menu of MLB 12 The Show now have all game modes, offline and online in the same list. As you can see from the image below, Home Run Derby is listed in game modes, once selected you’ll be able to select offline or online. You’ll also see Diamond Dynasty, which is an entirely new mode that mixes offline and online components and includes elements never before seen in a sports game (more info on both of those modes to come soon).

Moving over one click to the right from the main menu, there’s now a community menu with the online features available.

Unified Settings
Nobody wants to manage more than one set of user settings. In MLB 12 The Show, you set how you want to play in one spot: Options > User Settings. Regardless of whether you’re playing exhibition, Road to The Show, or an online league game, you’ll use your set of user settings. There are online game negotiated settings to keep the playing field even, but beyond those select few items, you play The Show how you want to play it.

Play Now Plus
Play Now has always been the best place to find an online exhibition game quickly. The single biggest request from the community with Play Now is the ability to customize certain user settings. Play Now Plus offers just that. Under the User Settings > Online Challenge Settings you can select those important settings you most care about and guarantee you find a game that matches those settings. If you’re an avid Guess Pitch off user, set it to Off, go to Exhibition > Play Now and you’ll be matched up with another user with Guess Pitch set to Off.

The best thing about all these features is that they’re available on both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. Thank you for reading and we hope to see you on March 6, 2012 when MLB 12 The Show hits stores exclusively on PlayStation. Welcome the The Show!

Much as they did against the Yankees, Texas jumped to an early lead in Game 1 and then blew it open against the Giants bullpen. After San Francisco bounced back to take Game 2 easily, the series moved to Arlington for a pivotal Game 3. Texas battled back from a 4-0 deficit to lead 5-4 in the ninth, but Aubrey Huff hit a two-run homer off Neftali Feliz and the Giants seized control of the series with a 7-5 win. A 6-3 triumph in Game 4 extended the Giants’ lead three-games to one, but Cliff Lee continued to be an almost unhittable force in the postseason for the Rangers, throwing eight innings of six-hit ball and winning Game 5, 4-3.

Still, the Giants had two chances on their home field to win it all. In Game 6, it was the Rangers’ turn to leave the hometown fans heartbroken, as they rallied for two runs in the 8th and two more in the 10th to win 4-3 and force a deciding Game 7.

In Game 7, pitching ruled the day as the teams combined for just five hits over nine innings. Leading off the bottom of the 10th, Pat Burrell’s fourth home run of the Series not only cemented his claim to series MVP award, it gave the Giants their first World Series title since moving west in 1958.

Here are the game-by-game scores:

• Game 1: Texas 10, San Francisco 3
• Game 2: San Francisco 9, Texas 1
• Game 3: San Francisco 7, Texas 5
• Game 4: San Francisco 6, Texas 3
• Game 5: Texas 4, San Francisco 3
• Game 6: Texas 4, San Francisco 2 (10 innings)
• Game 7: San Francisco 1, Texas 0 (10 innings)

And here are some of the Series’ top performers:

San Francisco Giants:

• Pat Burrell (MVP): 10-28, 4 HR, 11 RBI
• Buster Posey: 10-30, 3 HR, 6 RBI
• Matt Cain: 2 games, 1-0, 15 IP, 8H, 1 ER, CG in Game 2

Texas Rangers:

• Cliff Lee: 2 games, 2-0, 16 IP, 12 K, 2.81 ERA
• Josh Hamilton: 7-29, 2 2B, 3 RBI
• Elvis Andrus: 8-22, 4 runs, 2 RBI, 2 SB

How accurate is MLB 10: The Show? The World Series starts tomorrow – we’ll know soon!

In this post I’ll be describing the details of the all-new and revamped Online Season League system for MLB 10: The Show. Forget what you knew about SportsConnect leagues last year, and please continue reading…

Our goal coming into this year was to give online users the same season experience online as they’ve come to expect in the offline season mode. However, there are still the Online League specific features, like creating a Draft or Non-Draft league. The draft still allows for 6-30 teams, with some audio queues for “your turn” and “countdown.” A few new Create League settings: Custom Sliders, Presentation Mode, Umpire Balls and Strikes, Ejections, Home Run Celebration.

We are again providing you with all online user stats and leaderboards, but the huge change this year is the addition of all player stats for your full 40-man roster. You will get access to the full “Around the League” screens, including Playoff Brackets, Standings, Statistics, Team Rankings, League Leaders and Awards. Just to relay the amount of data available in Online Leagues, we are potentially talking about 30 teams, with 40 players, each with 70+ stats!

Beyond stats, we are including the pieces, essential to effectively managing a team during a season: Team Management. Under Team Management you can set your lineup, defensive positioning, pitching rotation and more. One of the keys to making a season mode realistic is the concept of Energy and managing your team with energy considered. This year, you won’t be able to use your ace for every game, over and over. If you overuse your players, your attributes will take a hit, and you run the risk of injury. This is a great segue to our next set of additions…

Injuries, disabled list, trades and free agents are all now a part of Online Season Leagues. Unfortunately, injuries are a part of the game. Just like in the big leagues, you’ll have to deal with injuries. Luckily there is the addition of the free agent pool and a 40-man roster to help you manage. You can now perform trades online. Trades can be 1 for 1, 2 for 1, 3 for 1, etc. There is a league voting system, so don’t think you’re going to get away with trading a scrub for an ace.

Now this is still an online league, so there are league management tools available that you wouldn’t need in an offline league. First, you can drop a user from your league. New to this year, you can also replace that user with another from the Invite Player screen. This is something that really helps a commissioner keep quality players in a league and ultimately the league progressing nicely. Another league management change is that any user, commissioner or league member can abandon or quite a league at anytime. This used to only be available while a league was in the forming stage. Now, you can quite while in season.

There are a few new additions and changes I wanted to rattle off:

• Additional Commissioner Slot (6 total leagues now)
• NEW Auto-resolve feature. Set to On/Off when creating a league and helps keep leagues progressing
• Ability to Drop and Replace players within an In-progress league
• Apply a Custom Slider to a league
• League Invitation system upgrade
• New My Complete Leagues list, showing a summary of all completed leagues, the winner and playoff participants
• New League Round-up and League History tabs in Gamer Card
• More emails and communication on league changes
• Players Needing Leagues upgrade. Commissioner can now send invites directly from that screen
• Additional information about users for a commissioner resolving a game
• Quit a league at any time (commissioner or league member). No more being held hostage

We look forward to seeing a ton of leagues created and played to completion.

Every year we try to assemble a diverse and entertaining soundtrack for MLB The Show. We look to create a balance of established bands and some lesser known, up and coming artists, which offer great music. Let’s face it; music is such a subjective art that it’s impossible to create a soundtrack that consists of songs that everybody loves. For that reason we offer “My MLB Music.” That said, take a look below at the artist bios and details below. This will give you a chance to see MLB 10: The Show’s soundtrack and get a glimpse of what each artist or band is about.

• Band of Skulls – “I Know What I Am”
• Baroness – “Swollen and Halo”
• The Grouch & Eligh – “All In (Feat. Gift of Gab & Pigeon John)”
• Night Horse – “Come Down Halo”
• Scarlet Symphony – “Your Blood Is Mine”



• Silversun Pickups – “It’s Nice to Know You Work Alone”
• The Budos Band – “The Proposition”
• The Heavy – “How You Like Me Now (Beats Mix)”
• The New Regime – “Haunt My Mind”



• The Soundtrack of Our Lives – “Babel On”
• We Are Scientists – “Rules”
• Zodiac Death Valley – “Look Alive!”

Hey there, it’s Jason from San Diego Studio. On behalf of Major League Gaming (MLG) and SCEA, the MLB 09 The Show dev team is extremely excited to publicly announce the MLB ’09 The Show All-Star Championship. The promotions team has just unveiled the details to those attending FanFest and other All-Star Week activities at Busch Stadium in St. Louis (see Jeff’s video and images from the ballpark). What we know is that you can register now here to queue up for a single player ladder which begins on August 3. The top 128 players from the ladder will be seeded into a single elimination bracketed tournament which begins on September 1.

There are two highly important points that make this a no-brainer for MLB ’09 The Show fans:

1. Prize package is massive — grand prize $10,000 cash and running up with $2,000 in Sony gear, and

2. My team has been working with SCEA, Foster City and MLG, New York to integrate game data on the backend, so participants will not have to report scores manually. This is the first time any tournament ladder on Gamebattles will offer such auto-reporting functions!

This is the first MLB The Show tournament of this size and everyone involved with the game is ecstatic about the opportunity. Don’t miss out on being among the first to be involved with The Show All-Star Championship.

Enjoy All-Star Week and don’t forget to sign up for the MLB ’09 The Show All Star Championship ASAP!

Online League Draft System:
While online leagues are fun, there’s nothing like hand picking the team of your team. And taking it one step further than Fantasy Sports, you can actually take your team on the field and play with them yourself.

The draft system rivals that of any fantasy sports system. It allows from 6-30 players to hold a FULL LIVE Draft, with the ability to set your draft day/time, pick timer/length, chat (and harass), view the Player Card/stats of available players, view the Player Card stats of other users in your league drafting. Another integral part of the draft system is the ability to set you draft queue. No matter how much planning you do, there’s always a chance you can’t physically be at your draft, or you may not be able to stay for the entire draft. That’s when the Draft Queue becomes essential. Simply queue up all the players you’d like to be on your team, place them in order of preference, turn off your PS3 system and walk away. The server will handle the rest. Not only will it put priority on the picks you have queued, but it will make certain you have a logical team…25 players, equally balanced between starters, relievers, infielders and outfielders.

Once the draft is over, set your lineup, have the commissioner activate the league and start playing your league games!

Online League Flex Schedule:
Finding opponents and playing games should be much easier this year. We’ve incorporated a Flex Schedule for all leagues (Draft or non-Draft leagues). No longer do you only get one series and opponent to play when you log into your league. Depending on the size and length of your league you can play ahead in the schedule. The Flex schedule is never smaller than 3 series/opponents, or never larger than 15 series/opponents (that’s right, 15!).

Not only are we offering the Flex Schedule, but we’re also offering a far easier Schedule Screen. The new online Season League Schedule screen has the same look and feel of the offline season schedule screen. We’ve added a Series countdown in schedule screen. This lets the league know when the current series expires and how much time they have before the Commissioner can resolve games. Get those games played!

We’ve also added a true League Lobby. Upon entering the League Office, you will automatically be given a seat in the League Lobby of that particular league. It’s called a persistent Lobby, and we’re very excited about it. Now you can hold a seat in a lobby, but navigate around the lobby. You’ll see a new Lobby Icon in the hot bar this year. It’s the text bubble with three dots. Once you see that blink, you know that chat is taking place in the lobby/game room you have a seat in.

There is also now the Draft Day and Time in My Leagues and League Office, which helps ensure league members won’t miss the draft.

Online Improvements:
Along with the major changes to The Show League system, we’ve made a number of general online improvements. Each year we listen to community feedback and do our best to address every issue. Since most of these are relatively self-explanatory, I figured the best thing to do would be to create a bullet point list:

• SportsCast Live now with Live Play-by-play audio while viewing a game (fka View Game Status)
• Set Lineups in Online Season Leagues (vs. RHP, LHP)
• Ping indicator in Team Select screen, before entering an online game
• New Legend skill level, requiring a user to reach 4500 points
• 4 options for Guess Pitch settings (Default, Classic 1/4, Classic 1/6, No Feedback)
• Addition of 30 sec for each extra inning
• Square to forfeit opponent instead of X (not allowing accidental forfeit)
• Ability to select a jersey in an online game
• Ability to mound visit
• Access to Quick menu (up on D-pad)
• Online steals addressed
• Quick pitch exploit addressed with a delay
• Allow both players to view the replay when one player enters replay mode via pause menu
• No pausing when ball is hit in play
• Persistent Chat – ability to maintain a seat and interaction in a game room, even after leaving. This is perfect for League Chat rooms
• Online Player Options in far more areas in the SportConnect Lobby. This is the pop-up that allows for a Challenge, Send IM, Invite to Buddy, SportCast Live, etc.

Following in the footsteps of the My Slider feature, we’ve put more control in the user’s hands. Community shared content leverages the creativity of user’s like you. And if you’re one of the users that love to customize rosters and share with others, you know how difficult it’s been in the past to relay your settings to other users. The Roster Vault in MLB 09 The Show solves that problem. The Roster Vault allows you to make all your roster changes (some new to this year), save them off, and upload them for others to download and use.

Here’s how to upload a Roster to the Roster Vault:

1. Take any roster (on disc or a weekly Live Roster update)

2. Make any changes you’d like to the roster and players within. This could be player names, attributes, jersey numbers, accessories, handedness, etc…

3. Save the Roster to your hard drive

4. Connect online with MLB 09, via SportsConnect, select the Roster Vault feature from the Community section.

5. Select Upload from the Roster Vault options

6. Select one of the Rosters from your hard drive to upload

7. Name it, describe it and Upload

At this point, anybody in the community can browse the Roster Vault to find the highest rated or most downloaded Roster online.

Here’s how to find a Roster in the Roster Vault:

1. Simply connect online, via SportsConnect

2. Select Roster Vault from the Community section and choose to Browse/Download

3. Once in the Roster Vault you can sort by highest rated, most downloaded or date uploaded.

4. Select the Roster you’d like and choose to download

5. Save it to your Hard Drive and name it

6. Select the Roster section in the Features are of the Main Menu

7. Select the Roster from your hard drive and apply it

8. Select to start any offline Game Mode (Exhibition, Season, Franchise, Road to the Show, etc) and play with our new Roster

9. Connect back online and Vote for it’s rating

As well as being able to browse all uploaded rosters on the server, there is also a My Rosters section. That is a custom list of all Rosters you’ve uploaded and downloaded. It allows you to easily see how you’ve interacted and contributed to the community. You can browse and remove rosters from that list at any time.

Although we believe we package the best MLB game out there right out the box, users always want to customize and make changes. The goal is to provide you, our community members, the tools to customize the game to your liking.

We appreciate your feedback, as we try to make the best game possible. Thanks for your time. We hope you enjoy MLB 09 The Show and the new features!

Each year we try to incorporate features that allow you to customize our MLB THE SHOW franchise to your specifications. Making a soundtrack to satisfy all players, from all walks of life, is nearly impossible. So, in an effort to please all fans of the MLB THE SHOW franchise, we are offering the new My MLB Music feature. My MLB Music will allow you to take the music you have on your PLAYSTATION 3 Hard Drive or on your PSP Memory Stick Pro Duo and create your own Jukebox Playlist. From the Jukebox screen below, just press the circle button to activate the My MLB Music feature.

Once you’re in the pop-up, you can Create a new playlist, Load an existing playlist, or Edit an existing playlist. On the PS3 My MLB Music screen, you can organize your music list by Artist, Genre, Album or song. From there, select the track(s) you want to be included on your custom playlist and save it. Take a look at the shot of the PS3 My MLB Music screen below.

Once loaded with your My MLB Music custom playlist, you can navigate the menus, check out stats, and train up your Road to the Show player with your custom music playing in the background.

Don’t worry, we still have a stellar soundtrack included on all three releases of The Show. The soundtrack includes names like, The Ramones, WAR, A Tribe Called Quest, Queens of the Stone Age, ZZ Top and more.

Hope you enjoy MLB 08 THE SHOW and the My MLB Music feature when the game launches March 4th. In the meantime, try your hand at the MLB 08 THE SHOW demos, hitting the PLAYSTATION Store for PS3 AND PSP this Thursday!