Sports fans –

The wait is finally over as today marks the equivalent of our Opening Day with MLB 11 The Show hitting store shelves everywhere! This year’s installment is shaping up to be the best yet and early reviews have agreed with extremely positive impressions coming from various media outlets, including GamePro (5/5), PlayStation: The Official Magazine (10/10), Game Informer (9.25/10), GamesRadar (9/10), and Crave Online – just to name a few. The reviewer for GamePro specifically called MLB 11 “one of the best and most complete sports games I’ve ever played.”

Reviews will continue to come in this week, but I’d also like to point out a few other recent media hits for MLB 11, most notably a feature in this past Sunday’s New York Times highlighting our good friend Hans Smith and his help in establishing the ADVA (Assoc. for Disabled Virtual Athletes) setting in this year’s game. Additional coverage has included IGN’s reveal of MLB 11′s top rated players and teams, ESPN.com’s exclusive image gallery, our Joe Mauer/Kevin Butler TV commercial, and our recent GameSpot demo at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

So, as you can see the whole team has been busy, but before I go, I’d like to share our latest trailer in celebration of our launch, entitled “What a Great Game.” Thanks again to all of fans and friends in the media for your continued support.

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of MLB 11 The Show today. For more information, visit www.TheShowNation.com.

Welcome to The Show!

MLB 11 The Show is proud to present our groundbreaking hitting controls with the ALL NEW Pure Analog Hitting System. One of our biggest goals this year for MLB 11 The Show was to give the fans a new way to play. Feel the rush of an incredibly realistic batting experience based on precise mechanics, anticipation, and pure instinct. As you can see in this video, the Pure Hitting controls let you stride, swing, and bunt using the Right Analog Stick. Have a look…

To use the new Pure Analog Hitting system, simply pull back on the R-stick to stride and push forward in the direction of the incoming pitch to drive through the ball. Be sure to time your stride just as the pitcher releases the ball, a poorly timed stride will result in a less powerful swing. Don’t try to hold your stride back just waiting for the pitch — you’ll lose power! Time it like a real swing and begin your stride as the pitcher’s getting ready to deliver.

With a little practice, you’ll be piling up the RBIs in no time! And don’t forget, there’s only a few days left to pre-order MLB 11 The Show on PlayStation 3 for a FREE 30 day trial of Premium MLB.TV.

Welcome to The Show!

Spring training is officially in full swing. In less than a month fans will begin packing stadiums around the country, clamoring for sunflower seeds, popcorn, hot dogs and refreshments – ready to cheer their team on with big dreams of bringing home a pennant in 2011. If you can’t make it to spring training and are already counting down the days until the official first pitch is thrown, then you’re in luck. In less than a week, the number one selling, highest rated baseball franchise exclusive to PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable returns when MLB 11 The Show hits stores nationwide. Now baseball fans everywhere will have the chance to hone their skills and get in the game a little early this season. In preparation, Kevin Butler is back, challenging Twins All-Star catcher, Joe Mauer, to a battle at the plate.

You’ve heard us say it before, but this year truly marks some exciting updates for the franchise. MLB 11 The Show takes this fan favorite to the next level by providing you with multiple choices when it comes to how you play the game. A great example is the new PURE Control System – the optional ability to control your swing, pitching and fielding with the analog sticks on your DUALSHOCK 3 controller – a feature many sports fans have asked for and will now have at your fingertips. The game also sports 3D functionality and PlayStation Move support within our Home Run Derby mode, giving you the opportunity to immerse yourself in the action like never before.

MLB 11 The Show will be in stores next Tuesday, March 8th and this TV ad will begin running this afternoon when the Miami Heat takes on the Orlando Magic on TNT. Over the next several weeks you will also be able to catch it during more of your favorite programs on popular networks such as ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS and Comedy Central.

Go Giants and see you on the field!

Sports fans –

One of our biggest goals this year for MLB 11 The Show was to give the fans a new way to play. MLB 11 The Show is proud to present our breakthrough in fielding controls with the ALL NEW Pure Analog Throwing System. The 3rd in our series of tutorial videos each highlighting the Pure Analog Control System, check it out and learn how to play D like an All-Star!

Pure Analog Throwing offers a new way to experience fielding as you can now control both the accuracy and power behind your throws. Push the analog stick towards any base to release your throw, or hold L1 while pushing the stick in any direction to throw the ball from the outfield to the cutoff man. Holding the stick longer will put a little extra mustard on the ball, but make sure to keep your throws accurate by pushing the analog stick in a straight line. Keep in mind that you can adjust Analog Throwing difficulty to make your experience more enjoyable.

Remember that all errors are user-controlled this year, meaning play on the field is no longer left to chance. As MLB 11 The Show boasts a dynamic error system, error margins are determined by individual player stats, so accuracy is a must! MLB 11 The Show is the most realistic baseball game ever because your team’s defensive performance is entirely in your hands!

With a little practice, you’ll be filling up your trophy cabinet with Gold Gloves in no time!

There’s 1 week left to pre-order MLB 11 The Show on PlayStation 3 for a FREE 30 day trial of Premium MLB.TV.

Welcome to The Show!

Brand new to MLB 11 The Show this year, and to Road to The Show, is the Player Performance Evaluator. This new system analyzes your approach at the plate (or to batters faced) to then grade you, and in turn, provide training points. There are a number of factors that determine if the at bat was good or not, which include things like the amount of pitches during the at bat, the type of contact of the hit, and the overall result of the play. In general, the more pitches you see during the at bat, the better your chances are to receive a good result regardless if the at bat ended in a hit or not. However, ripping a first pitch strike for a home run will always be considered a good result. This result scale holds true for pitchers as well, although the system is the opposite so what a batter does that’s considered a success will likely be a bad result for the pitcher. We then take the result of each at bat and reward you with training points. The scale is vast in what levels of points you can achieve so for example, a one pitch single resulting in a good at bat will likely net you fewer points than an eight pitch single would.

Not only do we summarize your at bats, but the system also evaluates several things during each at bat to determine areas you excel in or fall short in. For batters, we evaluate your swing timing, contact quality, plate discipline, pitch recognition, and finally your overall at bat results. This data is tracked for your most recent 100 plate appearances and is displayed in the locker room screen, under the Player Performance Evaluator tab.

For pitchers, we keep track of your strikes versus balls thrown, percentage of first pitch strikes, percentage you work ahead in the count, a breakdown of your pitch type tendencies, and finally your overall batter’s faced results. The same holds true with batters in that the data is tracked for your most recent 100 batters faced.

After we’ve tracked enough data to establish your play style tendencies, we then determine the areas you need to improve on and trigger the training session that best suits that area. The training modes have been overhauled for batting and pitching this year to now focus on specific areas for each. The new batting training modes include timing training, contact training, discipline training, recognition training, and good at bat training. The new pitching training modes include knockout training, pitch location training, pitch type training, and sim game training.

Each of these trainings have their own specific purpose. For instance, in timing training your goal is to hit the ball fair with well-timed swings – swings that are too early or too late will count against you. For pitch type training, you will be told what pitch to throw and given a target for the location. Hitting the target with a different pitch or missing the target will not reward you. Each of these trainings also have levels of difficulty ranging from 1 to 5. In Road to The Show, you’ll start at level 1 and once you achieve the target success for that level, you’ll unlock the next level. Each level brings a new set of challenges so for example, level 1 timing training will require you to have 7 successes, whereas level 4 will require 10.

We’re very excited about this year’s new Performance Evaluator and training mode additions and hope you are as well. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to pre-order your copy MLB 11 The Show on PS3 to get 30 days FREE MLB.TV! We were able to get a few test codes to check out last year’s games and this really is a cool app. Follow your favorite team home or away on your PS3 with MLB.TV.

Welcome to The Show!

Before I introduce MLB 11 The Show’s new co-op mode, I want to remind everyone that the MLB 11 The Show demo is now available for download on the PlayStation Store! Play four innings in beautiful AT&T Park in this World Series rematch as the San Francisco Giants take on the Texas Rangers. I hope you enjoy.

Now on to co-op! For those of you that follow us closely, you know that we spend a lot of time reading feedback from all of our fans out there. One of the features that many of you have been pushing for is the desire to play The Show with someone as a teammate, instead of just as an opponent. So, this year we created a co-op mode that gives you and a buddy the ability to play on the same team against the CPU, against 1 player, or against 2 other players.

Here’s how it works…you’re able to customize who will be responsible for the different offensive and defensive areas of the game. When you’re at bat, you can choose to allow one person to do all of the batting or choose to alternate batters. The base running works in the opposite way so if you’re batting, your teammate will be responsible for the base running allowing you to work together for sacrifices and hit and runs. I promise you, if you’re playing a 2v2 co-op offline, you’ll start to develop hand signals with your teammate for these situations. I know, that sounds ridiculous, but it’s going to happen.

When you’re in the field, there are four different controllable areas—pitcher, catcher, infield, and outfield. Again, you have the ability to customize who is responsible for different areas. The pitcher, like the batter, can alternate between the teammates (per inning).

To help avoid the confusion of who is doing what, we created some graphics that use your player’s color to indicate what responsibilities you have at any given moment. You’ll see the description as you load into a co-op game, and the dynamic icons will drop down from the scorebar at the beginning of each at bat.

Co-op is also available online allowing two systems and four players maximum (two users per team) to play a head-to-head game. The PlayStation Network user logged in will receive the game stats and points on their profile. The other user is their copilot, so to speak. Users can also play an unranked co-op game—two users, on two different systems, on the same team, versus the CPU.

Now, typically when you think of sports video games, you think of the competitiveness (and trash talking) that comes with trying to beat down your buddy, humiliating him, and making him cry, which is always fun. With that said, the first reaction to playing as a teammate might be that you would lose some of that enjoyment, at least that was always my impression. Boy was I wrong. While playing with another member of the team here in San Diego, by the second inning into our first game you started hearing…”You are killing me,” “I’m going to have to do all of this myself, aren’t I?,” “Man, you’re awful,” etc…(quotes edited and censored of course). Co-op brings a whole new way to enjoy MLB 11 The Show so we hope you have as much fun with it as we do, and that you don’t lose too many friends from the experience. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to pre-order your copy MLB 11 The Show on PS3 to get 30 days FREE MLB.TV! We were able to get a few test codes to check out last year’s games and this really is a cool app. Follow your favorite team home or away on your PS3 with MLB.TV.

Welcome to The Show!

Sports fans –

One of our biggest goals this year for MLB 11 The Show was to give the fans a new way to play. MLB 11 The Show is proud to present our breakthrough in pitching controls with the ALL NEW Pure Analog Pitching System. Pitching with pin-point accuracy and devastating control will bring you closer to the game of baseball than ever before. Check out the 1st in our series of 3 tutorial videos each highlighting the Pure Analog Control System.

Pure Analog Pitching allows you to control pitch height, location, and velocity with the right analog stick. To start, pull down on the right analog stick to begin the pitcher’s delivery as a ball icon moves gradually downward towards a yellow line. That line represents your ideal pitch height. Time it such that you push the stick upward at precisely the time the ball icon hits this yellow line. Inside-outside pitch location is a result of the direction you push the right analog stick up. If it’s an 0-2 count and you know your buddy will stick at anything, you might want to throw outside a foot out of the zone to make sure you strike him out. How hard you flick the right stick up will determine how much effort the pitcher will put into the throw. If you really want to throw some gas, flick the right analog stick up quickly to add a few miles per hour to your pitch. Just be careful. Too many high octane pitches could tire your pitcher out in a hurry. Overall, your timing, accuracy, and speed are all taken into account when delivering a pitch with Pure Analog Pitching.

I’ll admit I that usually enjoy hitting more than pitching, but I had just as much fun striking out my coworkers than hitting Home Runs off them.

Check back soon for a sneak peeks at Pure Analog Hitting and Pure Analog Fielding.

FREE 30 days of Premium MLB.TV when you reserve and purchase MLB 11 The Show for the PlayStation 3 system!

Welcome to The Show!

Sports Fans -

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!