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MLB's Advanced Media arm inks deal to create content for NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Baseball Advanced Media, MLB's interactive and online broadcast arm, have come to terms on a deal that would give the NHL access to the same Emmy award-winning production assets that the MLB enjoys. The six year deal would effectively create "a fully integrated global hub of digital content that encompasses video, live game streaming, social media, fantasy, apps, along with statistical and analytical content." Basically, all the cool stuff that baseball fans enjoy at MLB.com is coming to hockey fans at the start on next year.
RBI Baseball 14 slides to Xbox One and PS4 next week, updates this summer
We're over two months into the MLB's 2014 season and MLB Advanced Media is now re-re-introducing the RBI Baseball series next week on Xbox One and PS4. RBI Baseball 14 launched digitally on April 9 for Xbox 360, PS3, iOS and Android, and now it'll arrive on the next-gen platforms on Tuesday, June 24. MLBAM also announced plans to update the game "later this summer." The update will bring a new competitive multiplayer mode and a "special alumni pack" for all console versions of the game. The pack will add "60 former Major League stars from the earliest days of the RBI Baseball brand" to RBI 14. First announced in early January, RBI 14 is an arcade-style baseball game with unlockable retro jerseys and a simple two-button control scheme. Along with iOS and Android, the next-gen versions of the game will receive updated rosters to reflect roster changes this year, such as Emilio Bonifacio (Chicaco Cubs), Brandon Hicks (San Francisco Giants), Masahiro Tanaka (New York Yankees) and Jose Abreu (Chicago White Sox). It will cost $19.99 on Xbox One and PS4. [Image: MLBAM]
Two-button slugger RBI Baseball 14 goes retro with unlockable jerseys
In 1986, Namco launched RBI Baseball for the NES (Famcom in Japan), and it grew into a household name before Time Warner Interactive's RBI Baseball 95, the heretofore last game in the series. Now, the MLB will publish RBI Baseball 14 on April 10, and MLBAM Vice President of Games Jaime Leece expects the game will remain faithful to the treasured series. Much like those classic games, the developer created three body types and preset batting stances for those character models as opposed to painstakingly differentiating every batter. And while NES games in the late 1980s were naturally restricted to two face buttons and a d-pad, Leece's team intentionally opted for two-button controls for the modern take on the baseball game. Leece believes that these decisions immediately separate the game from other sports games in the genre. "When you take away the barrier of control, it leaves the competition pure," Leece told Joystiq. "It's you against me, it's not your dexterity versus my dexterity. Having to deal with button combinations and things like that creates an extra challenge that's, I think unnecessary and certainly gets in the way of the enjoyment of the product itself."
