digoBlog: news on tech & games

Toyota just announced a recall of its 2010 hybrid cars. Four hundred thousand worth. The reason? A change in "brake feeling" caused by faulty antilock braking software. There is no fix for cars on the road yet.

This problem, unrelated to the sticky gas pedal issue that other drivers complained about. But I'm still wondering what exactly is bothering our Prius-loving friend Woz, who claims he has a faulty cruise control issue that is software related, not mechanical.

Remember that old joke about if cars were as crash prone as computers? Yeah, not funny in 2010. [CNN]

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/vlWOocHwcLo&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); The good news first: Adobe's promising Flash 10.1 is going to hit smartphones—Android, WebOS, Windows Mobile—and desktops in the "first half" of this year, a slightly less squishy date. And it'll come over the air. The bad part?

Well it's bad for Android, anyway: You're gonna need Android 2.1. At least. Because it provides some access Adobe needs to make the Flash magic happen. So, sorry everything but the Droid and Nexus One, at least for the moment. The "over the air" thing is also kind of "up in the air" as to what that means: It could come from your carrier, it could come from your phonemaker, or failing all else, it could come from Adobe. Which means, Flash isn't necessarily going to hit your phone at the same time as everybody else's. Depends on your phone. But, they're betting that over half of smartphones—53 percent—will have Flash Player by 2012. Not surprisingly, Adobe says Flash 10.1 is going to be all over some tablets, too, with accelerated performance on Nvidia's Tegra 2, Qualcomm's Snapdragon (like what's in the Nexus One), and Freescale's i.MX515.

Lastly, Adobe would like you to know that this whole Adobe vs. HTML5 thing is silly, since they totally support HTML5, like all web standards. They love them some web standards, they say. But! They would also like you to note that HTML5 standardization is years away, and Flash works right now. And the reason you notice crappier performance on the Mac is sorta the Mac's fault, they say, because they need more access to APIs and they get half-assed crash reports. Plus, Adobe claims, apps tend to run faster in Windows than OS X generally, because performance is about 20 percent worse using OS X's GCC compiler, not to mention performance varies even within an OS, since Flash runs 20 percent faster in IE8 than Firefox, for instance. Either way, performance will be better on Mac with Flash 10.1, since it's shifting over to using CoreAnimation.

Okay, you can resume your "death to Flash!" chants now (even though it's not going anywhere for a while, people!). [Adobe]

Disgaea developer and publisher Nippon Ichi didn't have the best 2009, dood. Last week, the company announced its earnings for the first nine months of its fiscal year (ending December 31, 2009), recording operating profits 97.5% lower than those of 2008.

This week, reacting to the news of the precipitous drop, investors freaked out a bit and the price of NIS stock on the Japanese JASDAQ exchange dropped ¥7,000 ($78.42), almost 20%. JASDAQ froze the price, or it might have dropped further. Siliconera posted a list of all recent and upcoming NIS games. Have a look -- we're sure NIS America would really, really appreciate a purchase of Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love or Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman 2 in the next few months.

Nippon Ichi earnings plummet in 2009 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The new online social MMO from Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield's Tiny Speck puts players through a wide variety of paces. Quests, egg growing and clouds on a string are just a part of it.

Stewart Butterfield and his friends are back at it with a new company. CNET's Daniel Terdiman was given exclusive, behind-the-scenes access as they built it from scratch.

To build Glitch, the Flickr co-founder put together an impressive team of some of his earliest collaborators on the popular photo-sharing site.

Since last March, the Flickr co-founder and three partners have quietly been developing an online social game they hope will appeal to a wide audience. CNET has been there to document the creation of their start-up.

The vision of ebooks Google has presented to publishers: allowing people to print copies, cut and paste portions, and paying publishers 63 percent of the revenue. The vision the publishers presented in return: Go eff yourself.

That's right, Google's finally getting around to opening an ebook store too—called Google Editions, and it's been in the works for a while—the idea being that people will be able to read the books on any internet-connected device.

What's incredible is how the Times says negotiations are now proceeding. Now that Apple and Amazon are fighting over publishers and their books—imagine how oh-so-hotly desired they must suddenly feel—publishers have real power to negotiate, and it comes with wondrous effects, like getting an information monolith like Google to actually back down. There will be no printing, no cutting and pasting. And 70 percent, like what Apple and Amazon are now offering, is apparently starting to sound dandier to Google. Another point Google gave in on, surprisingly, is search. Previously, they planned to make up to 20 percent of every book they sold through the store searchable, but that wasn't kosher with some of the publishing execs, so now they can choose to opt out of search.

Google finally jumping into selling ebooks, with the idea of being the ebook seller to everyone—or at least, everyone not toting a special reading device, just your average thing with a screen and internet access—could definitely shake things up even more than they already are. And you know, a Chrome OS tablet with an ebook store would be slightly more interesting as a cheaper iPad rival.

Publishers should enjoy the attention, and power, while it lasts. Because it won't. [NYT]

As seen inside the retail copy of Dante's Inferno for the Xbox 360. (Likely to be found in the PS3 version as well)

We're pretty sure that the new Mass Effect 2-centric video from Mega64 that you'll find after the break is pretty funny. The crew seems to be grilling everyday citizens on censorship, specifically relating to all the xenofornication going down aboard the Normandy.

We say "pretty sure" and "seems" because ... well, we can't watch this sort of thing with the sound on because it makes us too uncomfortable. There, we said it out loud. That means we also have no idea if the language in the video is safe for work, since we can't hear it. Let's just play it safe and assume it's not, OK?

Continue reading Mega64 talks Mass Effect 2 sex censorship

Mega64 talks Mass Effect 2 sex censorship originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Final Fantasy XIII has been in development for over five years, has involved hundreds of staff and has cost the publisher a ton of money. So you can see why there'll never be another Final Fantasy game like it!

Speaking with Sony on the official European PlayStation blog, the game's producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Motomu Toriyama have said:

If you consider that during Final Fantasy XIII's development, at peak time the team consisted of over 300 people. It was a huge team, plus it took a several long years to get the game finished. So, if Mr Wada meant that we would never make another Final Fantasy title with the similar number of people, taking as long as FFXIII did, we would agree.

Obviously in the future we want to be much more efficient. Having worked on XIII, we feel that we have got much better at making good games for high definition consoles. In the future our teams will be smaller and more effectively run.

Less like elephants, then. More like cheetahs. Nimble, spiky-haired, sword-wielding teenage cheetahs.

An Interview With Final Fantasy XIII's Kitase And Toriyama [PlayStation]

From website 4Gamer.net comes the news that Nintendo is developing new hardware, and Shigeru Miyamoto is working on a new Wii Motion Plus game.

The news is from a recent symposium in which Miyamoto discussed things like hamsters. 4Gamer does not quote him directly, but does state that Miyamoto revealed he is working on a game that uses Wii Motion Plus. This game is not the upcoming Legend of Zelda title.

At the 2008 E3 gaming expo in Los Angeles, Miyamoto announced that Nintendo was making a new Pikmin game.

What's more, 4Gamer reports that if Nintendo is working on new hardware that will be announced officially at a later date.

Here is a translation of the 4Gamer piece:

Regarding the next title everyone is interested in, there were some vague comments [from Miyamoto] that said the full body experience of Motion Plus will be used in Wii Legend of Zelda and another title. Since they are developing new hardware again, it seems like they would like to wait as an official announcement could be made shortly/later on. 

The lack of direct quotes regarding both these issues are somewhat disconcerting with the recent he-said-she-said about things a Nintendo exec may or may not have said. 4Gamer did note that Miyamoto's remarks were "vague". The 4Gamer remarks are also vague, and what's more, peppered with speculation.

When contacted about Miyamoto's remarks, Nintendo of America replied, "Our development teams are always working on new possibilities for future hardware and software, but we have nothing to announce at this time."

Likewise, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata stated in a recent investors meeting, "Naturally, we are always developing new hardware."

Of course, Nintendo is working on new hardware and new games. The same is true for Sony and Microsoft. But is Nintendo announcing any of that new hardware in the new future? Nintendo does have a press conference later this month.

4Gamer.net - 任天堂，宮本 茂氏が語った「ゲーム機を介したコミュニケーションの活性化」。新ハードを開発中との発言も出た，第13回文化庁メディア芸術祭「功労賞受賞者シンポジウム」レポート（New スーパーマリオブラザーズ Wii） [4Gamer]

It may seem at this point that we're kicking an already downed and plenty insulted victim here, but we couldn't help but note the shockingly low price of a Tony Hawk: Ride bundle -- complete with board, unopened -- discovered by Gamertell at an Arlington Heights, Il. Goodwill store. Two Wii versions of the game were on sale for just $74.99 (down from $119.99 MSRP) -- a Goodwill employee said the game's presence could be explained by donations from local retailers, listing Kohls, Sears, Borders, and Target as potential donators. Alright, alright, we'll admit it -- the price drop isn't that steep, but a near $50 difference on a barely four-month-old game sounds pretty decent to us.

Presumably, one of the aforementioned retailers was more interested in the shelf space (and the tax write-off) than waiting for the game's fairly cool sales to heat up. Either way, if you're looking to get your ... ahem ... feet on the game, maybe your local Goodwill could offer a better deal than the other brick-and-mortars, eh?

Discounted: Brand new Tony Hawk Ride at ... Goodwill? originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo sent out a press release today triumphantly boasting of victory in an Australian court over a man accused of pirating New Super Mario Bros. Wii. And how this single man now owes the mega-rich company $1.5 million.

Last November, Nintendo says it was able to "employ the use of sophisticated technological forensics" to catch the man, James Burt, who has been convicted of uploading the word's first pirated copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii onto the internet.

Burt - a single man, not a company or group - now must pay the Japanese publisher and platform holder AUD$1.5 million (USD$1.3 million), "to compensate Nintendo for the loss of sales revenue caused by the individual's actions."

Yes, he broke the law. And as a pirate, should be punished. But this is a game that's sold over 10 million copies in just three months.

Nothing like a little disproportionate punishment to maintain that lovable image, eh Nintendo?

Wonder Festival 2010 Winter was held over the weekend in Japan, and featured loads of cosplayers. It also featured loads of new video game toys.

While we've shown you some of the figures on display ahead of time, many more made public debuts at the show, like these guys: Jack Frost from Persona, Muramasa's Momohime, Virtual On goes cute, some Tales of Vesperia figures and a blurry, yet still tempting, "Super Action Statue" of Yakuza's Kazuma Kiryu.

ワンダーフェスティバル 2010［冬］レポ 企業ブース編その [Hobby Stock]

Here's a fun little piece of 16-bit history for you -- did you know that when Sega made its big announcement last week, a game called Sonic 4 had actually been floating around for 14 years? Sure, it's not an official Sonic game, mind you -- it was merely a modded version of the classic Sunsoft SNES platformer Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos. 1UP recently shared the game's illicit history -- a group of Peruvian hackers known as Twin Eagle Group got their hands on the game in 1996, removed all instances of the hasty Mexican mouse, and replaced them with Sega's spiny mascot.

Check out a gameplay clip of the unsanctioned Sonic 4 after the jump. Yeah, it doesn't look great -- but to be fair, Sonic doesn't whip out a gun at any point, nor does he engage in light bestiality, so we guess it has its charms.

[Via Kotaku]

Continue reading We sure hope the new Sonic 4 isn't a remake of this Sonic 4

We sure hope the new Sonic 4 isn't a remake of this Sonic 4 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Customers suffering shipping and technical issues with the new Android phone now have more resources than online support forums.

Introversion Software's port of the award-winning Darwinia comes to Xbox Live Marketplace this week for 1200 Microsoft Points. The abstract strategy game may not be the most graphically impressive of XBLA offerings, but its gameplay is rock solid. [Xbox.com]

Welcome to Kotaku Off Topic, the nightly open thread in which Kotaku commenters talk about anything and everything. Tonight you can do it with attitude.

Speaking of Compton, I drove down there today for something Kotaku related, something that we'll probably reveal within the next week or two. My only problem with Compton? The potholes are terrible. Someone needs to go down there and clean those roads up!

Alright, you probably don't want to talk about road construction. So feel free to talk about something much more interesting. Maybe one of these things?

• The Tonight Show set being disassembled - Major bummer, reporting for duty.
• You see that Google Super Bowl ad? - Yeah, it was pretty good, but also kind of old.
• Super Bowl the most watched TV broadcast ever, with 106.5 million viewers - Oh, so you did see that Google Super Bowl ad.
• Toyota to announce Prius recall - *wince*
• American Apparel looking for world's best bottom - Keeping a close eye on this contest.

The Los Angeles Times' "How I Made It" feature has shined a spotlight on none other than Naughty Dog creative director Amy Hennig, illuminating the secret of how a 45-year-old woman can conquer the gaming industry and nab Joystiq's Game of the Year with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. She started out as a film student back in 1989 and says she had a revelation while working freelance for Atari that gaming "was a more interesting and pioneering medium" than even the movies.

She worked her way up the ladder and took chances when they came along. When the lead designer on the wacky Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City left the project, she stepped up and took the job. And having talent and intelligence can't hurt either -- she says that she puts her whole education into gaming, from English lit to film editing, and while she downplays her place as a woman in gaming ("This is a young enough and progressive enough industry" to avoid most problems with sexism, she says), she does admit that she, erm, moderated the male perspective on breast size with some of her developers. Because somebody's got to, right? Excellent profile of one of gaming's more unlikely stars.

[Thanks, MikeIriye!]

Naughty Dog's Amy Hennig tells the LA Times how she made it originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, Google's Superbowl ad was cute and left us giggling, but how would a French romance powered by Google really go? [UCB—Thanks, Mackenzie!]

Since we just got off this discussion of how hitting will work - now with check swings! - in MLB 2K10, here's a video showing how at bats will play out in the game, for both pitchers and hitters.

It also offers a good three-minute look at gameplay. While MLB 2K10's visuals are not as crisp as the uncommonly good MLB 10 The Show, they have improved noticeably over last year's game. One thing I'm not crazy about here is the typeface on the name-tape above the uniform numeral. It doesn't correspond to its normal presentation and many teams (the Braves, for example) have variances on this.

I offer this criticism fully aware of its aesthetic nature. Then again, baseball fans are notoriously picky about such things. But it has nothing to do with the gameplay, which I'll have to spend more time with once the game releases March 2.

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.gametrailers.com\/remote_wrap.php?mid=61703","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":408.5,"ratio":0.817,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"gametrailers"} );

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/H8rHarp1GEE&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} );If you're a huge space buff, you might not be surprised by anything in this video tour of the International Space Station. But it's still great to just get a simple walkthrough of this incredible project and all its corners.

Anyone else get a bit bit light-headed watching all those twists and turns? [CrunchGear]

Nintendo reaches A$1.5 million ($1.3 million) out-of-court settlement with New Super Mario Bros. Wii pirate; case could affect release timing in Australia of future Nintendo titles.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii was a massive hit for Nintendo last year, with reports stating the re-imagining of the classic platformer sold nearly 10.5 million units globally in its first two months of sale. The game seemed to be a popular one for illegal downloaders, too, with Nintendo saying copies of the game were available on the web as early as November 6, 2009, days before its official release.

Now it seems Nintendo has nabbed a pirate, today reaching a settlement against an individual in Australia for illegally copying and uploading New Super Mario Bros. Wii in November last year. Queenslander James Burt has been ordered to pay a damages bill to Nintendo of A$1.5 million ($1.3 million), and to cover the company's legal fees. According to Nintendo, this fee is to compensate the company for the loss of sales revenue caused by Burt's actions.

In a statement from Nintendo, the company said it used "sophisticated technological forensics to identify the individual responsible for illegally copying the file and making it available for further distribution". This lead to police searching Burt's home on November 23 last year. Court documents also show Nintendo wanted any details and passwords found during the search relating to Wii hack site www.yafaze.com. Visiting the site now only results in a message appearing stating yafaze has shut down, and that "the site and all of it's [sic] contents has been removed out of respect for Nintendo".

A Nintendo Australia spokesperson told GameSpot AU that apart from the loss of revenue caused by piracy of the game, the fact that an Australian was the first to illegally upload the game could jeopardise the release timings of future Nintendo titles. Typically, Australians have had to wait days and sometimes months after other regions for Nintendo games to be released locally. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was a rare occurence where Australia received the game earlier than any other territory.

"Nintendo Australia is always pushing for games to be released here at the same time as the rest of the world, so we were pleased to get New Super Mario Bros. Wii before anyone else," the spokesperson said. "Unfortunately, due to to the actions of this individual, future release dates may be affected for Australia, which is disappointing for us."

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

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Annual college hoops game, rhythm series, and Windows version of outer-space horror game all missing from Electronic Arts' 2011 release calendar; company mum on status.

Earlier today, Electronic Arts revealed its 2011 fiscal year calendar as part of its quarterly earnings report. Besides assigning launch windows to high-profile releases like Crysis 2 (Q4 2010) and announcing APB's delay to the April-June quarter, the schedule also unveiled new titles, such as a new Dragon Age title.

EA's FY2011 calendar was also notable for what it did not list. Missing from the schedule was EA Sports' annual NCAA Basketball series, which saw its last installment receive decent-to-middling reviews in November. EA Sports reps had not responded to request for clarification about its status as of press time.

NCAA Basketball's absence from EA's detailed schedule raises the possibility that EA Sports may not release a college basketball game for the first time since NCAA March Madness 2004 arrived in late 2003. The franchise's suspension--or outright cancelation--would come just over two years after 2K Sports permanently benched its rival College Hoops series.

Another title missing from EA's FY2011 schedule were any Rock Band games, including Green Day: Rock Band, announced in December via a trailer at the VGAs. Though EA has distributed all prior Rock Band games since the franchise launched in 2007 under its EA Partners program, its logo was conspicuously absent from the trailer. Also missing were the monikers of the game's co-publisher, MTV Games, and its developer, Harmonix.

When contacted by GameSpot about the omission, Harmonix reps deferred to spokespersons for parent company MTV, which politely declined immediate comment. Inquiries sent to reps for the EA Partners program had not been returned as of press time.

Finally, EA's schedule shook up assumptions about the forthcoming sci-fi horror sequel, Dead Space 2. Though it slated the game to arrive in Q1 2011 for consoles and, for the first time, handhelds, the calendar did not list the PC version.

Dead Space 2 PC's omission comes just a month and a half after it was officially announced for Windows, as well as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. However, since figures from the NPD Group show the original Dead Space sold under 40,000 copies on the PC domestically, a summary cancellation of a follow-up would not be completely surprising.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

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Apple's hiring again and this time they're looking for "Performance QA Engineers" in their "iPad Media" department. Based on the description for the job, we might be seeing an increase in iPad camera rumors:

The Media Systems team is looking for a software quality engineer with a strong technical background to test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks. Build on your QA experience and knowledge of digital camera technology (still and video) to develop and maintain testing frameworks for both capture and playback pipelines.

Based on the demand for someone to work on video capture frameworks for a device which can't even capture video we could presume that Apple's exploring some future options. As if we didn't already think that. [Apple via MacRumors]

Visceral Games' Dead Space 2 may not be the next game you play in the sci-fi franchise. Recent surveys point to an Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network port of Wii misfire Dead Space Extraction and something brand new, Planet Cracker.

One survey's description of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 port of Dead Space Extraction indicates that any planned port of the game would feature the same on-rails "guided first-person experience" gameplay, pitched as an "interactive horror experience" in "full HD." A tentative price of $15 USD was mentioned in the survey forwarded to Kotaku.

Another title, known as Planet Cracker, was potentially more interesting. Described as a "resource strategy game where players will manage a CEC Mining operation," Planet Cracker focuses players on attempting to "maximize their daily profit" and "defending their hard-won ore from Space Pirates." Sounds like Ore Tycoon aboard the USG Ishimura.

Planet Cracker was billed in the survey as an extension to the story of Dead Space 2 and could yield "in-game rewards" for the retail version of the sequel, similar to the Fable II Pub Games that preceded Lionhead's role-playing game and netted players in-game gold.

Both Dead Space Extraction HD and Planet Cracker were listed a possible incentives for Dead Space 2 that could be unlocked to those who pre-purchased the game.

While the survey appears legitimate, EA's plans may change, so we're labeling this information as rumor until any official announcements are made. We've contacted Electronic Arts to get clarification but have not yet heard back.

In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Jamie MacDonald, former Vice President of Sony Worldwide Studios (the company responsible for EyeToy), gave out a few pointers to Sony and Microsoft regarding their respective motion controllers. MacDonald warned that gamers are expecting more from the 360 and PS3's motion gaming than they do from the Wii, due to both consoles' beefier hardware. However, he also warned about implementing "traditional long-form gameplay," lengthy sessions of which would leave players "completely knackered."

MacDonald's wisest words came when speaking about pricing the two pieces of hardware. He suggested they follow Sony's strategy with EyeToy, where the peripheral and a piece of software came bundled for the price of a normal game, which kept consumers from "paying a premium for the hardware." That's a sweet thought, but it's a little presumptive -- after all, we've yet to hear a price for the two devices. (Hell, we haven't even heard a name for one of them.)

Former EyeToy exec warns of the difficulties facing Natal, 'Arc' originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/052l5ESJDKQ&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); I hate spiders, I hate horror movies, and I hate gimmicky computer cases. But I love the commercial for the Lian Li Mini-atx case. Maybe it's just because it reminded me of Steve Irwin.

There aren't details on availability and pricing for this case, but who cares when the promo video alone is fun. [CrunchGear]

A mini-foofaraw stirred up after MLB 2K10 previews revealed the game had no check-swing mechanic. 2K Sports felt an improved batting eye and new "defensive swings" eliminated their need. But they've backtracked, and said check swings will be patched in.

So you'll now have four swings in MLB 2K10, all executed by the right analog stick. Pushing up is a normal swing. Pulling back and pushing up is a power swing. Pushing either right or left is the defensive swing they've introduced to help you foul off pitches, work the count, and tire out the pitcher or get the pitch you want to hit. Now there's the check swing, which is accomplished by drawing back on the right analog after you've executed one of the other three. Remember, check swing is just to keep from swinging at something outside the strike zone, a decision the batting eye and pitch tip is supposed to help you make before the ball arrives.

Frankly, I don't get it. Speaking strictly in terms of gameplay - I'm talking about the decisions you make for hitters you control - check swings as they are currently executed don't do much except offer cosmetic realism. Since swinging is mostly an instantaneous decision and you don't preload a swing, it's difficult to meaningfully install an "abort" command which is what a check-swing is. MLB 09 The Show does this by stopping the swing if you release the X button quickly mid-swing, but that can result in false positives. I can count on one hand the number of times I have successfully and intentionally checked my swing against a pitch thrown for a ball in MLB 09 The Show.

I've played MLB 2K10 on a pre-check swing build. The decision to swing is executed fast-twitch. I'll be interested to see how much delay they incorporate to allow you time enough to pull back and check a standard swing. And going back-up-back to check a power swing is just stupid. If you've committed to swing from your heels, you're probably going to follow through and if, in real life, you were to try to stop such an effort the bat would probably travel across the plate anyway. So, hooray, you get a called third strike instead of a swinging strikeout.

If 2K eliminated check-swing animations from bot players, that would be bad. That would meaningfully harm realism. It's immensely satisfying, as a pitcher, to ring up a hitter on an appeal to a third- or first-base umpire. But as it applies to user-controlled hitting I totally buy 2K's reasoning that this will be a little-used feature and that's why it wasn't included in the first place. I think 2K Sports is just offering a fine-have-it-your-way to people complaining about the lack of a feature that, for the majority of players, doesn't do anything in the first place.

Now, as 2K Sports has said this will be patch code, we know it won't be on the disc. The question is, when will it arrive? If it's the day of release, then we can all shut up and everyone's happy. If it takes a week or two, expect this noncontroversy to continue.

Pitchers vs. Hitters Battle, Part II [2K Sports]