What you need to know
- MLB The Show 24 is the latest game in the yearly baseball title franchise developed by Sony San Diego Studio and published by PlayStation Studios.
- Over the past few years, the franchise has gone more and more multiplatform, with Xbox console versions starting in 2021 and a Nintendo Switch version starting in 2022.
- Like the past three games, MLB The Show 24 is launching day one in Xbox Game Pass.
- The game is set to arrive on March 19, 2024.
Another yearly sports title is stepping to the plate.
PlayStation, Sony San Diego Studio, and MLB shared on Tuesday that MLB The Show 24 is set to launch on March 19, 2024 across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, with this year's cover athlete being Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Like the past three games, MLB The Show 24 is also launching day one into Xbox Game Pass.
Preorders for the game are also open, with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions running for $60, while the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 versions will cost $70.
MLB The Show used to be a PlayStation exclusive franchise
It's easy to forget as the years blur together, but MLB The Show wasn't always a multiplatform franchise. From 1997 to 2020, the brand was exclusive to PlayStation hardware, with an agreement reached in late 2019 to bring the game to other consoles. Starting in 2021, MLB was developed for Xbox consoles and arrived on Xbox Game Pass, with a Nintendo Switch version also being developed starting in 2022.
According to Circana's December 2023 report, MLB The Show 23 was the 14th best-selling game of 2023 in the U.S.
Analysis: Another solid game for the year, but no PC?
MLB The Show has been on a roll for decades, and the developers at Sony San Diego Studio know what they're doing. For fans of baseball games, I hope you all have fun when this arrives in March.
I am slightly surprised that there's no Windows PC version this year. Certainly, sports games are larger on console than on PC, but with the Nintendo Switch version added to the mix back in 2022, this feels like it would've been the right year to add in another port, especially since PlayStation Studios has the PC porting experts at Dutch studio Nixxes.
That said, there are other PlayStation games coming to PC right now, and with Nixxes working on the PC port of Horizon Forbidden West (which is also slated to launch in March) the timing may have just not worked out and a call had to be made on resources. We'll see what happens next year!
