This price drop means owners of both the PS3 and the PS Vita hardware can buy both games for less than $50 combined, giving them the ability to enjoy cross-platform functionality by saving and continuing a single Season, Franchise or Road to The Show mode on either platform.
As you get ready to take your team to the playoffs on MLB 12 The Show, check out what the top players in baseball have to say about what the postseason means to them!

Want to know who has the best chance of being crowned World Series Champions? Well, San Diego Studios simulated the playoffs after last night’s Wild Card play-in game. You can read up on all the information at ESPN, where they go into detail about how the postseason will play out, according to MLB 12 The Show.

For more information on The Show, check out www.theshownation.com. Head to your local retailer to grab your copy today.

Great news sports fans! The most realistic baseball game available now has a new lower price. MLB 12 The Show is now just $39.99 for PS3 and $29.99 for PS Vita. The price drop is fresh off the recent news that Home Run Derby is now playable online for the first time ever in MLB The Show through a free downloadable update via the PSN, adding even more ways to play the most comprehensive version of MLB The Show yet.

The price drop also gives owners of both the PS3 and PS Vita hardware a chance to purchase both games for less than $70 combined, and enjoy cross-platform play by saving and continuing a single Season, Franchise or Road to The Show mode on either platform.

If you haven’t yet picked up MLB 12 The Show on either PS3 or PS Vita, now is the time. The second half of the 2012 MLB Season is just underway and there is plenty of time to challenge your friends for bragging rights before the playoffs start. For more information on The Show, check out www.theshownation.com. Buy the game here, or head to your local retailer to grab your copy today.

Here’s a look at some of the video highlights from the game courtesy of MLB 12 The Show:

In a season that has already seen five no-hitters, it should come as no surprise that pitching dominated most of the game. The AL got out to a 1-0 lead thanks to the power of former National Leaguer Prince Fielder, which stood until the bottom of the sixth when fellow Home Run Derby contestant Carlos Gonzalez delivered a big two run homer that put the NL up by one. Then a double by Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler, and a big RBI knock from Angels rookie sensation Mike Trout in the seventh tied the game up. But in the top of the eighth, a clutch hit by Giants catcher Buster Posey drove in the go ahead run. From there the NL bullpen held fast for a hard fought 3-2 victory, just enough to win the battle of baseball’s best. MVP honors went to Buster Posey, 2-3 with the game winning hit and RBI. Pitching obviously took center stage this year as the two staffs kept some of the game’s most dangerous hitters at bay. With such high quality hurlers, we could be looking at the start of a new golden era of pitching.

As top the top rated sports game for the past four years, MLB 12 The Show is the most authentic baseball game available. Find out tomorrow night if our prediction was right. The 83rd Major League Baseball All-Star Game will be televised nationally on FOX at 8:00pm EST.

For those of you who might be heading out to Kansas City, don’t forget to stop by MLB All-Star FanFest (July 6-10) at the Kansas City Convention Center (Bartle Hall), and swing by the PlayStation booth where you can check MLB 12 The Show’s Home Run Derby Online, which is available on PSN starting today!

Now, what is Home Run Derby Online you ask? Well, it’s an entirely new way to compete with other players on PlayStation Network. You can play against one or seven other users online (2-8 players simultaneously) for a chance to be crowned the Home Run Derby champion and earn extra XP. Users can enter into a “Random Match” against the community or “Play with Friends.” All players will see and be able to swing at pitches at the same time and watch each hit, which is represented by multi-colored hit ribbons that stretch from home plate to wherever the ball lands. The on-screen, in-game, real-time leaderboard lets you know who the leader is and where you stand so you’re always aware of how you’re doing against the competition. So, while you’re watching your favorite sluggers compete in the State Farm Home Run Derby tonight (8:00pm EST on ESPN), you can duke it with your friends in your own virtual HR Derby from the comfort of your own home. Pretty cool, right?

Lastly, don’t forget to compete in the latest Challenge of the Week. This week pits two All-Star starters against one another… New York Mets ace vs. the New York Yankees second baseman. Prize this week a signed limited edition David Freese MLB 12 The Show game cover. Good luck!

For more on MLB 12 The Show, visit www.TheShowNation.com.

With the MLB season now in full swing, I have great news for baseball fans. Starting May 28th, you can head to your local Taco Bell, grab a Big Hitter $5 Buck Box, and download the Taco Bell mobile app to play the mini MLB Home Run Derby game. Then, for a limited time you can challenge your friends via Facebook Connect to see who the heaviest hitter is and after you battle it out, you’ll unlock the Home Run Derby Online mode for MLB 12 The Show on PS3.

And if you want to get the upper hand against your friends, bring your camera enabled smartphone to participating Taco Bell restaurants for more ways to play. Just pick up a Big Hitter $5 Buck Box to unlock cool features like the ability to play as MLB 12 The Show cover athlete Adrian Gonzalez. You can also search in-store to scan other MLB 12 The Show branded items to help you rack up extra points. Win or lose, Home Run Derby Online for MLB 12 is yours, just for playing via Facebook Connect – but you have to go to Taco Bell before July 9th if you want to get it first.

What is Home Run Derby Online, you ask? It’s an entirely new way to compete with other players on PSN. You can play against one or seven other users online (two to eight players simultaneously) for a chance to be crowned the Home Run Derby champion and earn extra XP. Users can enter into a “Random Match” against the community or “Play with Friends.” All players will see and be able to swing at pitches at the same time and watch each hit, which is represented by multi-colored hit ribbons that stretch from home plate to wherever the ball lands. The on-screen, in-game, real-time leaderboard lets you know who the leader is and where you stand so you’re always aware of how you’re doing against the competition. Pretty cool, right?

Also, be sure to check out MLB 12′s latest Challenge of the Week and related prize. This week, you can compete for a chance for a signed Limited Edition Josh Hamilton game cover. For more on MLB 12 The Show, visit our official site.

Welcome to The Show!

The grass is cut, the infield’s been manicured, and the lines are chalked. That’s right, the boys of summer are back and it’s time to PLAY BALL as the 2012 Major League Baseball season will get underway tonight when the St. Louis Cardinals take on the Miami Marlins at their brand-new ballpark. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited to see what the defending World Series champions do against a revamped and rejuvenated Marlins club that is chock-full of new talent. And Miami’s new stadium will be showcased on a national stage for the very first time. For those who haven’t seen it yet, we gave fans a sneak peek at the new ballpark in South Beach earlier this year, courtesy of MLB 12 The Show, here’s a link to the video.

Simulating your favorite team with The Show is always a great way to get into the MLB spirit so to up the excitement level a bit more and to celebrate Major League Baseball’s season opener, so check out our new MLB 12 The Show Opening Day trailer above!

I’m also happy to report that The Show is still enjoying great feedback from the media. Just recently SportsIllustrated.com posted glowing reviews for MLB 12 on PS3 and PS Vita, as did the Associated Press. And don’t forget about MLB.TV on PlayStation Network, where you can watch all the Major League action with the new 2012 MLB.TV application for PS3. Just like last season, the MLB.TV app allows you to catch all of your favorite out-of-market teams (home and away broadcasts) live or archived streamed straight to your TV in brilliant high-quality HD, as well as an array of interactive features designed to take advantage of PS3′s technical prowess.  Head over to the “My Channels” icon under the TV/Video Services category of the XMB to download the free app and sign up for a subscription through MLB.TV.

Sports fans -

It’s that time of year again – the winter frost has thawed and your favorite team is ready to get rolling. With MLB opening day just a week out, it’s time for you to put together your fantasy squad. For those of you looking for advice on which players to target in your fantasy baseball drafts, we simulated the 2012 season using MLB 12 The Show to offer a bit of guidance.

In the AL, there are plenty of guys you can build a team around – Adrian Gonzalez, Evan Longoria, Jose Bautista, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and Prince Fielder all come to mind, just to name a few sluggers. For strong pitching, the NL East is a great place to start as the Braves and Phillies will have deep rotations yet again, while the Nationals may be ready to move up to the big time with the one-two punch of Stephen Strasburg and the newly acquired Gio Gonzalez. The NL has their fair share of hitters, too, with Joey Votto, Matt Kemp, and Justin Upton, while Carlos Beltran could be a sleeper in St. Louis, an organization with a track record of rejuvenating player’s careers.

For the rest of our picks courtesy of MLB 12 The Show, check out our latest predictions trailer above. You can also view it on ESPN.com or Operation Sports.

Welcome to The Show!

That description, however, would be selling short the full potential of TruBroadcast presentations. We’ve also restructured and refined upwards of 10,000 presentations and combined them with enhanced AI, revamped cameras, improved on-screen displays, and expanded audio to deliver the most realistic baseball gaming experience to date. Without question, this is our biggest leap forward in blurring the line between reality and our game. We realize that anything that detracts from this reality and requires suspension of disbelief can shatter the feeling that you are playing in a real game. To that end, we’ve worked tirelessly to create a single presentation mode that expands upon the emotion and variety that TV broadcast presentations offer while simultaneously improving upon the continuity of Real Time presentations. TruBroadcast presentations equal more baseball specificity combined with more realistic game flow!

Continuity, or game flow, is one of the presentation aspects that we focused on most while creating TruBroadcast presentations. We wanted to offer enhanced emotion and variety with a single presentation mode while at the same time avoiding disconnects in actor location. We don’t want a camera cut to reveal that an actor, or actors, had seemingly teleported across the field. We want to avoid disconnects that throw you out of the illusion that you’re watching an actual TV broadcast. With those goals in mind, we tirelessly studied countless MLB broadcasts and restructured thousands of presentations to improve the timing of the camera cuts, the framing of the camera shots, and the importance of who we cut the camera to. We hope all our hard work and improvements confuse you a little more as to whether you’re playing MLB The Show or watching a live broadcast.

To mimic a true broadcast feel for our on-screen displays, we’ve spent many hours researching regular season/playoff games and gained a lot of knowledge on what information an actual broadcast is passing to the viewer. We’ve also noticed how the on-screen displays transition on and off the screen and how simple and straightforward the look of it appears. When showing information on an on-screen display, showing little things like the pitcher’s pitch count and how many runners each team has left on base keeps you informed without overloading you with too much. We’ve simplified our on-screen displays by just showing statistical information and removing unwanted graphics. A good example of this is the removal of mug shots from the batter walkup display.

In terms of audio, the goal this year was the same as it’s been since we launched on the PS3 in 2007 – continue to grow the base and make the game deeper and deeper. To that end, we’ve added more than 70 hours of new recordings to the game this year, many involving both and sometimes all three of our main announcers. One main area of focus relates to season mode, where you’ll find much more content that centers around player stats, recent team performance, and both team and league leaders.

To further advance our idea of TruBroadcast, we’ve also added more detail to our jumbotrons this year. In MLB 12 The Show we took on the task of replicating each team’s jumbotron to have the exact design and feel of the actual team’s displays. Our jumbotrons now show actual batter and pitcher statistics, lineups, and previous at-bat info, just like at every real MLB ballpark. We’ve also added new HD-quality movies to be displayed on our jumbotrons so when the home team strikes out a batter or hits a home run, a movie will display to show the excitement and realism within our stadiums.

Lastly, we’ve added laser ribbons to each stadium that currently utilizes them. So you might ask, “what do we display on these laser ribbons?” Well, for starters all our movies, statistics, and anything that we feel will really bring the crowd to their feet in anticipation of what goes on in a real live baseball game. This attention to detail only adds to the realism that we strive for each and every year.

As you dig into MLB 12 The Show and get ready for MLB Opening Day on April 4th, be on the lookout for these improvements and see for yourself what TruBroadcast really means in The Show!

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.

MLB 12 The Show for PS3 and PS Vita has arrived and with it, the ability to experience the majors like you never have before. The Show is so jaw-droppingly real it doesn’t just capture every detail and physic of the game, it captures the raw emotion of baseball. So much so, in fact, that this year’s campaign is based around one line: So real, it’s unreal.

Our launch commercial isn’t just a demonstration of realism, it’s a celebration of what it means to be a gamer and, more specifically, a sports gamer. MLB 12 The Show lets you experience every big emotional moment that’s possible in baseball. Whether it’s the moment you’re called up to the majors or crushing a walk-off homer to win it all, every big emotional moment in baseball can be yours. And only The Show can deliver that with so much realism that it’s like it really happened.

For our commercial, we chose what’s arguably the greatest moment for any gamer and fan of baseball: winning the World Series. We celebrate the fans who have the longest-running loyalty and emotion behind their team to win it – Cubs fans. But whether your favorite team (or player) just brought home the trophy last year, or if you’ve loyally followed them through thick and thin, we think any gamer knows the feeling of making their biggest baseball moments happen with The Show.

That’s why it’s the highest-rated sports game four years in a row… and we’re betting on five.

Sports fans! We’re less than 24 hours away from the release of MLB 12 The Show and as you know, the game will be available on PS3 and PS Vita. This year, in addition to our cover athlete, we have multiple athletes who will be partnering with The Show to serve as ambassadors for the game. One of these players is New York Yankees ace CC Sabathia, a proclaimed gamer who takes his PS3 on the road with him during the season. He recently helped us promote MLB 12 in New York City, and you can see the event notes and pics on ESPN.com (check out that sweet custom PS3!). Here’s also a look at our Sabathia gameplay trailer on ESPN.com.

So, now that PS Vita is out in the wild, CC has a console-like experience that he can take with him anytime, anywhere, and with the cross functionality between PS3 and PS Vita, he can now take his Franchise, Season, and Road to The Show save files up to the cloud where he can then access those files on either platform. CC recently sat down with us to talk about his impressions of MLB 12 The Show for PS Vita — see what he thinks in the video above.

Welcome to The Show!