MLB Power Pros 2008 Conference Call With Producer Rob Nelson

We have teamed up once again with Charlie McCracken over at Joystickwidow.com to bring you another conference call. This time around 2K Sports brought in Rob Nelson, producer of MLB Power Pros 2008, to give us the run down about the game. It’s coming out for the Nintendo Wii, DS and the PS2. The game is a huge hit in Japan. The team effort of Konami (the developers) and 2K Sports publishing has brought this game to the US market.

MLB Power Pros series relies heavily on a “Sim” or “RPG” style that is very popular in Japanese titles and mixes in the arcade action. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, the game sounds interesting. It uses all the MLB teams and is an official licensed MLB game. Due to the time restrictions, questions from each site were limited but should give you an idea of what to expect.

Q: When beginning development of the player characters, is it safe to say that the Nintendo Mii’s were an influence?
A: Mii’s fit the theme and feeling of the game perfectly. While the Mii’s are used, they did not greatly influence the developing team.

Q: When developing for the Nintendo DS, was there anything in particular that you needed to change or dumb down in order to get the game to work well with the handheld?
A: Controls were made simple for enjoyment of the game. The game will feel exactly like the other versions and the team worked hard to make the DS version just as fun as the other two versions.

Q: Why is there not a release for any of the current generation consoles?
A: No plans at the present time to bring the game to the Xbox 360 or the PS3.

Rob did mention that this did not mean a version would not be possible or ruled out. I took from this answer they are taking a wait and see approach based on how the game does in sales for the PS2, DS and Wii this year. New this year to the game for the US market is two modes. The first mode is called MLB Live. In this mode you will pick your favorite player and live, train and play as that player over a ten year period. You will have training to worry about as well as each game and then make choices during the week both professional and personal. For example, you can choose to get engaged or married. This is certainly more of a Japanese trend but Rob stated that the mode will not be deep but was created to have fun.

The other mode is the Success mode where you try and make it from the minors to the major league. This will involve trying to impress scouts, making the big plays and signing the right contracts. Last year they had a similar mode making the leap from college to the minor league. I was surprised that none of the versions offer an online mode, although each will have a multi-player mode. For those owning a Wii console, this version sounds the best of the three since you can load your player in the Wii remote and play at a friend’s house. Of course with the Wii version, it has the mechanics of the Wii remote. Overall I think Konami and 2K Sports are trying to bring something different to the US market which is encouraging. I have always looked forward to gaming companies to do this.

Thanks goes out to Charlie for asking me to cover the conference call and to Chase at AccessPR for hosting and arranging the call today.