Hometown hero Fernando Tatis, Jr. is the cover star for Sony San Diego Studios MLB The Show 21, which launches on April 20, but the real news is that the game will also launch on Xbox One and Xbox Series X the same day.
Unusual launch between consoles of a Sony-developed game gives Xbox baseball fans their first simulation-quality game since 2013 Major League Baseball 2K13 from Visual Concepts and 2K Sports. MLB The Show 21 also offers cross-platform play (between Xbox and PlayStation devices) and compatibility for saving games across generations (PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 and Xbox One to Xbox Series X).
However, saved games between generations do not include importing Career progression and Road to the Show from previous versions of the game. Sony introduced this feature, the first and only of its kind in sports titles, with MLB The Show 14 and 15 on PlayStation 4.
“We have nothing to say about the future of the feature, but we are aware of its popularity in the community,” Sony San Diego wrote in an FAQ.
However, there is no free upgrade from the previous console generation to the current family. Players who want to play MLB the Show 21 both generations will have to buy a collector’s edition. A price and other details will be announced on Wednesday.
MLB The Show 21Sony’s launch on Xbox platforms was announced in a December 2019 announcement, with both Nintendo and Microsoft acknowledging that the Sony franchise would be coming to their platforms. (Details on a Nintendo Switch launch were not given on Monday).
MLB’s absence on those two platforms dates back to the founding of 2K Games itself, when Take-Two Interactive bought Sega’s Visual Concepts studio in 2005 and negotiated an exclusive third-party license with MLB. Sony retained the right to make its MLB the Show series with San Diego Studio (known then as 989 Sports).
2K Sports’ MLB franchise declined in quality with the change to the console generation of 2005-2006 and never took off again, while MLB The Show may well become a console-selling sports title for PlayStation. The only video games licensed to Major League Baseball for Xbox and Nintendo since 2013 are the recomposed RBI Baseball series, an arcade-style game developed by MLB Advanced Media.
Shortstop Fernando Tatis, Jr. kicks off his third season with the San Diego Padres this year. The son of former St. Louis and New York Mets third baseman Fernando Tatis, he finished third in the 2019 National League Rookie of the Year balloting with 22 home runs and a .317 batting average over just half a season (84 games).
Tatis, Jr. is part of a wave of second-generation baseball stars who have made it to the league in the past four seasons, including the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger and the Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette.