MLB 14 The Show Officially Announced Along With the Greatest Sports Feature EVER

MLB14TheShowLogo

 

The greatest MLB game on the planet is not only preparing for the next season, but it’s also preparing for the next generation of gaming.

Details, plus some long awaited new features, after the jump.

We all knew that the MLB The Show franchise would be continuing on with it’s genre dominating yearly edition so it came as no surprise when MLB 14: The Show was officially announced on the PlayStation Blog. It also came as no surprise that it would not only be on the PS3 and the PS Vita, but it would also be on Sony’s next generation console the PlayStation 4.

The first surpise to come out of the announcement was that the cover athlete wasn’t decided by fans of the game, but by the actual players that step out onto the diamond and play the game. That is a rather interesting idea, and we have to wonder how many different players got votes. The final tally for all vote getters might be interesting, but it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the majority of them voted for arguably the best player on the planet right now. While he didn’t win back-to-back triple crowns, and he came a series short of making it to the Fall Classic, Miguel Cabrera truly deserves to be honored by his peers and probably would have won a popular vote among the fans anyway. No matter how you look at it, congratulations to a great ball player.

MLB14TheShowCoverAthlete

 

Another thing that didn’t surprise us too much was the upgraded graphics shown by the screenshots they shared. While we haven’t seen too much gaming first hand for the PS4, we have seen enough to know how powerful the machine is and what it is capable of. With that said the following images show the difference while looking at the Green Monster of Fenway Park, with one shot rendered by the PS3 and the following image rendered by the PS4.

PS3
PS3
PS4
PS4

Now that is an impressive difference. You can actually see the old school panels in use with the PS4 version, and that should bode well for when we get to see some actual in-game footage of players. Here’s hoping they figured out to give real high fives and not just phantom tags.

PS3
PS3
PS4
PS4

Without revealing too much, Sony gave us a taste of some of the many advancements They’re making to the product for 2014. Here are just a few:

  • Thanks to the power of PS4, MLB 14 The Show is going to be the most beautiful baseball product we’ve ever created.
  • For some of you, full 9-inning baseball games may be too long for your liking, so we’ve created an all-new Quick Counts option, which utilizes generated pitch counts allowing gamers to play through full games faster than ever. Realistic statistics in this shortened gameplay experience have not been compromised. Users will now be able to play a full 9 inning game in less than 30 minutes, essentially cutting traditional game times in half.
  • We think Road To The Show is the deepest, most realistic single-player experience in sports video games, and we’re making it even better. A few of the new features include a new advancement system, new intuitive player creation process, and all new pre-draft prospect showcase.
  • And finally, what makes baseball great are those “big moments.” The power of PS4 will allow gamers to share those moments using the new “share feature” by capturing and publishing their most thrilling baseball moments, from hitting a game-winning grand slam, to picking off a runner at first for a crucial win in a World Series game.

That all sounds great but the biggest announcement for us long time fans was this little bit of info:

  • We know how much time and effort our fans put into their Seasons, Franchises, and Road To The Show players. So beginning with MLB 14 The Show, you can now carry over your saves to future versions of MLB The Show. MLB 14 The Show lays the foundation for year-to-year saves, meaning you never have to worry about starting your Franchise or Road to the Show seasons over!

Every year it’s the same story. We pick up the latest edition of MLB The Show from our local game store right around the start of Spring Training in the real world, then get home to start playing on our console of choice. We start a guy out in Double-A where we work on our skills. We hit the batting cage before every game. We take fielding practice every chance we get. We finally get our call up to Triple-A where we toil some more. All the while we are getting better and better. We see our average building over time, with power numbers starting to climb. Our base running gets better and better and we start stealing bases like a natural born thief. Finally, all of our hard work pays off. We have met every goal our manager has asked, and we get to take that plane ride from a farm club to The Show.

Over the course of a real 162 game season, into the playoffs, October, maybe November, we continue to chase Pennants, Championships and records. Within the confines of a video game, you can work through quite a few seasons in that stretch of time. Personally I have a guy that I started using back with MLB 10: The Show for the PSP and still to this day will go back and play with him from time to time. The game is compatible as a downloadable title for the PS Vita, so I was able to copy my game saves over from my memory-stick duo. The point being, that guy has has almost 20 years of in-game MLB service and holds just about every batting record known to man. The sad part to me is, he only exists in the world of MLB 10: The Show. He can never be a part of any other future game in the series, so he can only live by me playing a game from the past and that really sucks. Not that MLB 10 was a bad game, far from it. The graphics just aren’t anywhere near the quality of MLB 13 for the Vita, and the step backwards is a little hard on the eyes now. For the PSP the game was top notch for its time, but its time has clearly passed.

MLB 14: The Show finally addresses that problem for future Road to the Show players created by fans. While I’ll probably have to retire my 2011 Rookie of the Year (took him a little while to break into the bigs), now I can start building my RttS character knowing full well that he can continue his storied career into MLB 15: The Show and beyond.

Of all of the things I got from that article, this is the one feature we, as long time fans of the series, were the happiest about.

Thank you Sony San Diego Studios. Thank You!

Teaser Trailer

Louis Edwards

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