EA Sports: MVP Baseball to Return?

[22cedric]

EA Sports has been a leader in football and soccer, but when it comes to our national passtime, the publisher simply hasn't had an opportunity in the market in several years thanks to MLB's exclusive third-party agreement with Take-Two's 2K Sports. That agreement is coming to an end in 2012, and since the MLB2K games have been underperforming, odds are 2K Sports won't seek a renewal. This, of course, opens the door for EA Sports and its once popular MVP Baseball franchise to return to the virtual diamond.
Speaking to IndustryGamers (as the head of EA Sports before being promoted to EA COO), Peter Moore informed us that the "majority" of the team that worked on the MVP Baseball series are still employed at EA Sports. "There’s enough people at Sports who would say 'I’m in.' And we’ve got enough quality talent that’s been around a long time. You would start from scratch because this would be something where you’d have to build the engine again because it’s been a few years," he said.

Moore added, "But the business has to be right for it. We like where we’re at right now in building the relationship, kind of interestingly, from the lowest common denominator, which is Facebook, and we’ll see where we go from there."
Moore's referring to EA Sports' World Series Superstars on Facebook, which lets you build and train a baseball team. "If you’re a baseball fan, it’s a lot of fun. But, you know, we’ve had a relationship that goes back a long time with MLB, MLBPA, and...we’re dealing with them all again, so we’ll see what happens."
EA Sports will definitely be watching the situation between MLB and 2K closely. "It hasn’t worked out the way 2K would have liked it from the baseball perspective. I don’t know whether they’re renewing," Moore observed. "We will certainly, as always, keep an eye on it."
Sony's MLB The Show franchise is king of the hill right now, but MVP was highly rated at the time. What do you think? Should EA Sports pursue MVP again?

[Money99]

No other baseball game has sold more copies in a year than the last MVP title did.
So I'd say EA would do really well if they got back in the baseball business.
I still hope 2K stays in the game, but I'd be surprised if they did.

[HustlinOwl]

Quote: Originally Posted by Money99

No other baseball game has sold more copies in a year than the last MVP title did. So I'd say EA would do really well if they got back in the baseball business. I still hope 2K stays in the game, but I'd be surprised if they did.

not hard with being on multiple platforms lol

[bkrich83]

God, MVP was terrible.

I do hope it comes back though, the more competition the better.

[BlueSkies7776]

Quote: Originally Posted by bkrich83

God, MVP was terrible. I do hope it comes back though, the more competition the better.

I wouldn't say it was terrible, but there were things that I did not like about it. Even in 2005 when the game was new (and everyone was praising it) I was having trouble enjoying it. The gameplay was solid for the most part, but the presentation was pretty laughable. I hate how the fielders never plant their feet or double clutch before a routine throw. And I hate how the catcher does not throw the ball back to the pitcher after every pitch (this was later added in the college games MVP 06 and MVP 07).

People loved the MVP series because they were fun, polished games. But when the series ended and I was "pushed" to try out Sony's MLB series, I realized how cartoony and arcadey the MVP series was. MLB 06 The Show, which was the first "The Show" game, was light years ahead of MVP in terms of presentation. And the gameplay wasn't bad at all either, it was pretty much right up there with MVP IMO.

With that said I'd love for MVP to come back because Baseball desperately needs another polished series of video games. Especially for those who do not own a PS3. I'd love to play another Baseball game away from MLB The Show that is worth a damn, just for a breath of fresh air. The closest I got to that was The Bigs in 2009, which was a fun game but obviously an arcade-like game. But if EA does do it, they really need to make the player models look more like real life and less like bobble heads.

[SoAwesome]

It will come back and dominate.

[22cedric]

I hope MVP Baseball returns and becomes a simulation baseball game.

[Money99]

Quote: Originally Posted by HustlinOwl

not hard with being on multiple platforms lol

Check out it's totals on JUST the Xbox.
On the Xbox alone it sold nearly 1M copies. On the PS2 even more.

So that argument can't be used. MVP was extremely well received and no other baseball game has come remotely close to matching it's sales totals.

EA's brand recognition certainly helps. I'm positive that if EA made another baseball game it would double the totals that The Show and 2K have combined.

I don't know why, but baseball sales have really tailed off over the past few years.
The Show sold nearly 1M copies in 06 but '11 didn't even sell 500K on the PS3.
I wonder if people are just less interested in baseball today compared to a few years ago.