MLB 15 the Show: New Screenshots, Twitch Stream Highlights and More

In less than two weeks, the day virtual baseball fans have been waiting for will have arrived.

On March 31, MLB 15 The Show will be released exclusively on Sony PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. If you've been on board with this game since its inception in 2006, its release day feels like a national holiday for you.

This year, the hype has been hosted primarily by Sony San Diego Studio's Twitch channel. Most recently, the channel hosted a developer tournament that not only showed fans some spirited and fun competition but also a sneak peek at over seven hours of gameplay (if you didn't get an opportunity to see it, click here to see the past broadcasts).

In case you don't have the time to watch entire streams, here's a detailed breakdown of the information revealed during the most recent broadcast provided by Chris Sanner of Operation Sports. Year-to-year saves from last year's version was a primary topic of discussion, as was the increasingly impressive Franchise mode and the new radio show that will be featured in Road to the Show and Franchise.

From Sanner:

Year-To-Year Saves

• You will be able to use licensed equipment if you import your Road To The Show player from MLB 14.
• It only took four seconds to load an MLB 14 save into MLB 15.
• Save files from the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita versions of MLB 14 must be uploaded to Sony's cloud, and from there, they can be downloaded into your PlayStation 4 copy of MLB 15: The Show.
• All of MLB 15's new facial scans and skin tones will be automatically applied to imported MLB 14 roster files. Players' attribute ratings, though, will remain the same as they were on your old file.

Franchise Mode

• All teams' farm systems are randomly generated whenever you start your Franchise.
• You can still edit any player's attributes whenever you want from inside Franchise/Season mode.
• Any player's contract can be edited, but you must make your changes before you begin a Franchise or Season. You cannot edit contracts once a Franchise/Season is in progress. You are able to adjust contract length and contract value.
• All draft picks and minor leaguers can only be signed to one-year deals.
• You cannot extend a player's contract during the season. You must wait until the offseason to start negotiating.
• If you're importing a Franchise save file from MLB 14, then you'll begin in the first year of your three-year contract, regardless of where you're at on the 20XX calendar.
• Your GM Rating will always start at an average "C" and can either move up or down, depending on your team's performance and whether or not you achieve your owner's goals.
• If you perform well with a low-budget team, then a big-budget team might offer you a job at the end of the season.
• The contract system can be turned off entirely, if you prefer, which allows you to stay with your selected club for the entire length of the Franchise, regardless of your team's performance.
• Whenever you put a player on the trading block, a new "trade value" bar will show you how much each team in the league covets your player. Teams looking to make a playoff push will be more interested in read-to-play veterans, while rebuilding franchises will be looking to acquire promising young prospects.
• A new "suggest trades" button will make it easier to find offers that the game is likely to accept.
• The trade logic has been tweaked so that there are more straight-up, one-for-one trades and less lopsided, multi-player trades.
• Trades remain limited to just two teams per transaction. Three-team and four-team trades are something that Sony San Diego is considering adding for future editions of The Show.
• You will see more performance-based player progression this year, but the system is still predominantly governed by a player's age and his potential rating. The potential rating can change slightly over time based on your on-field performance.
• The age point where players start to naturally regress has been pushed back for MLB 15, and you can even stave off regression for a bit by performing at a high level in old age.
• Teams' budgets will grow/shrink over the years based on each club's performance, but certain franchises that have a long history of being big spenders (like the Yankees) will continue to receive large budgets, even if they perennially underperform.
• Your team can accept performance-based sponsorships to increase its budget. The sponsors' logos will only show up on the score tickers and in the instant replay banners.
• You can bring any of the retired legends into Franchise mode, if you want.
• 10 minor league stadiums have been added on PlayStation 4. These fictional, unlicensed stadiums previously existed on PlayStation 3 but now look much prettier on Sony's latest console.

Radio Show

• The PlayStation 4 is the only system that will have the radio show this year, due to the huge amount of audio data it requires. There was not enough space to include it on PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Vita.
• Radio host Justin Allegri broadcasts minor league baseball and college football/basketball in real life.
• Allegri mostly recaps box scores and stats but will also talk about any recent injuries, team transactions, career milestones or impressive single-game accomplishments.
• The radio show will keep playing while you move through the Franchise menus.
• It will work in Road to the Show and Franchise, but if you listen to the radio show in RTTS, it will only talk about MLB events and won't mention anything that's happening in the minors.
• Your created character can be mentioned on the radio show, but the news won't be slanted to make him the primary focus; the show just treats him like any other athlete.
• Players without a recorded audio name are referred to by their jersey number, position and team name.

Miscellaneous Notes

• You can now select a specific month and time of day for exhibition games. These settings will affect the in-game lighting.
• If you start a game at night and it goes deep into extra innings, you will eventually see the sun rising in the a.m.
• Users will have more control over their fielders this year, as they won't be locked into catch animations until much later in the ball's descent.
• Starting pitchers' performances will begin to plummet at 20 percent stamina; relief pitchers start struggling at 40 percent stamina.

Beautiful Screenshots

image provided by Sony

To further whet the appetites of thirsty Show fans, Sony released a bevy of screenshots. The one above of the Chicago White Sox's Chris Sale is great. However, the Chicago Cubs fan in me is a bit partial to the one below that features Starlin Castro turning a double play against the rival St. Louis Cardinals.

image provided by Sony

The increased level of detail for players, their licensed uniforms and equipment and the stadiums and lighting can be seen in the following images:

Screenshots are nice, but to really get an appreciation of how much the game's visuals have improved from last year's version to the upcoming one, you'll need to be planted in front of a high-definition display with controller in hand.

How Do You Plan to Play?

photo credit: Brian Mazique

The Show has so many different options and ways to play. In a game with 10 primary modes (Franchise, Season, Postseason, Road to the Show, Diamond Dynasty, Online Head-to-Head, Online Season, Home Run Derby, Exhibition and Practice), it's easy to ignore a few of the options.

This year you can play the new and potentially improved Diamond Dynasty collector/fantasy mode. It includes legendary players from every major league franchise, simplified menus and other new options. DD has always had the premier customization options among similar modes in other sports video games but has lagged behind when it came to functionality. Hopefully, this year's version delivers more balance.

There's always the good old-fashioned Franchise mode. Developers of The Show have clearly gone to great lengths to make that mode as deep as it has ever been. Importing the legends you earn in DD into your Franchise mode roster is a subtle but welcome addition.

Year-to-year saves is an even better option. It gives you the ability to continue the seasons and/or RTTS saves you began in MLB 14. 

If you try to play 162 games in a season, like me, you know its a task completing a full campaign. Even if you play less games in a season, it's still tough to get through multiple years. With year-to-year saves, you can pick where you left off last season. It's hard to quantify how awesome that feature is; it should become standard for every major sports video game franchise.

RTTS is back as well. I'm interested in seeing just how much has been added to this mode. It might be time to inject some personality into it, but that's a huge step that we're not likely to see in this year's version. In any case, there still seems to be a treasure chest of options for baseball gamers to partake in.

Spring Training Release Event

Last year, I attended an MLB The Show spring training event. A few of us were able to preview the game and gain some insight into its development. I'll be attending the same event this year on March 30, just a day before release. I'll be looking to post some videos as well as any information I'm able to dig up from the event.

It should be an awesome time as we lead up to the release. Stay tuned for the official preview, review and more MLB 15 The Show news throughout the season. It's almost time to play ball.

Follow Brian Mazique aka FranchisePlay, the Sports Video Game Journalist