Holy crap! Major League Pawapuro is here!

Okay, here is the info...

-It's called Jikkyou Powerful Major League

-Confirmed only for PS2 and Gamecube at this point

-No release date was given

-I have no idea about an international release, though it really should happen. Unfortunately, I know the types of people in the US who are die hard baseball fans, and this could be too cutesy for them. Regardless, I think MLB and Konami are doing the right thing for going this direction. The collaboration between this game and Pawapuro has a ton of potential. This is the game in which we should get the wish of having Success Players go overseas realized. Maybe that email I sent to Konami Japan a while back wasn't a total waste. Hehe.

-All major league stadiums will be recreated for the game.

-Player data will be updated for 2006.

-Success Mode will focus on challenging the majors as a Japanese player.

-A new mode in which you become the GM and try to take your team to the World Series.

-Iguchi looks to be the image character for this game. He says he's a huge Pawapuro fan and is happy to be back in the game after not being in it last season.

-They had a demo play with the Yankees vs. White Sox in which Iguchi got a hit and said the batting form looks just like his.

-Iguchi said he'd like to create a Success player that had strong running, defense, and offense. He wants to be that kind of player in real life, too. When asked where he'd want to bat in the order, he replies "3rd would be nice..." and laughed.

This is an absolutely huge coup by Konami. I don't think anybody expected this. I've wanted it for a long time, but I didn't think there would be any realistic way to do it. Why would MLB care about Pawapuro and where would they get the resources? I guess the answer to the first is, they're trying to market to Japan more and Pawapuro's combined sales figures were all they needed to see. As far as resources go, I think the reason the producer changed for Pawapuro 12 and why Pawapuro 12 didn't see as huge of a change as past versions is because the real development superstars for Diamond Head have been working on this game for at least the past year. I'm psyched.

http://www.gpara.com/news/06/01/news200601240964.htm

www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20060124/pml.htm

plusd.itmedia.co.jp/games/articles/0601/24/news077.html

Looks great but I don't think this is coming to the U.S. First, Take 2 have the rights for 3rd party MLB titles so Konami can't release that over here. And second, it will not sell well here because the U.S. gamers are graphic prone and just seeing the visuals will turn gamers away.

As for myself, I got my money waiting for the release already. This is fantastic news and finally I can play a MLB game with GREAT gameplay and real stats. GOD BLESS YOU , KONAMI!!

This is beyond huge.

I've been speechless for the last five minutes.

Hooray Konami!

And let's hope that this is just the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Konami and MLB!

lol, the new member of the yabe/yuta/kameda's family is a westerner with blonde hair...i wonder if pawapuro will ever show all 12 of their brothers out, lol~~~

this is great, 30 ball parks + secrets; new franchise mode...this is gonna be great, i cant wait to play it

i wonder how many 180 power guys there will be, lol

Well, you can bet it'll be a game American fans will import. It has a chance to get the following Winning Eleven slowly built up. I'd love to see a patching community for Pawapuro like WE has.

Only problem I see from this could be some of the more mature audiences not appreciating it as much bcoz of the cuteness of how everyone looks in the game.

They might prefer realistic look than cutey looks and therefore stay away from it...altho once u pick it up...u cant stop playing.

WE/PES was bounded to be successful bcoz it has all the fabulous looks and superior gameplay. Hopefully people will try it before they rate it when it comes out and will realize the great gameplay covers the missing realistic graphics.

"I have no idea about an international release, though it really should happen."

Adding to what was said above, this game will not be released in the United States as a third-party exclusive, as Take Two owns the exclusive rights to third-party major league games. The only chance of it seeing an North American release is if Konami teams up with a first-party video game company(such as Nintendo or Sony)and then releases it. Then, again I'm not exactly sure of the restrictions with the Take Two exclusive deal with MLB third-party rights.

"Why would MLB care about Pawapuro and where would they get the resources?"

MLB is always interested in expanding it's international base. There is a MLB International branch in Tokyo. Pawapuro is the most popular baseball game in Japan, so what better way to promote Major League Baseball, than by making a Pawapuro game? Anyway, the game has to be licensed by the MLB and the MLBPA, so it might be a dual interest in promoting Major League Baseball.

I would imagine that something like "Pro Yakyuu Spirits" would do better here as it's more realistic and the gameplay, while not as good as Pawapuro, is far better than anything in the U.S. - it could catch on .

It's definitely on my "GET SOMEONE TO SEND ME" list. Perhaps it's the only way the "Roiyaruzu" (Royals) could win the pennant!

Uehara, the executive producer, said that he'll wait and see how Pawamajor does before they consider Major League Spirits. From a business standpoint, it makes little sense to go through the effort of making the game if Pawamajor doesn't sell.

BTW, I think the huge appeal in this game is finally having a fresh schedule and rosters. I kinda get tired from playing with the same NPB guys all the time and playing the same teams. This was especially true in 2005, when we barely got any graphical or animation improvements from Pawapuro 11. I'm hoping Pawamajor turns out to be the huge step that I expected last year.

Some news I forgot to mention before...

-The strike zone will be different from Pawapuro.

-Announcing and menus will be bilingual. This can either be good or bad, because English announcing in Pawapuro 10 or 11(I forget which) was god awful. Pawapuro has never been too strong in the announcing department.

-Seems like there's no My Life Mode announced. Also, Season Mode was announced, but they explain that as the GM mode. I'd be very disappointed if there's no Pennant Mode style option. I can't see Konami leaving that out.

-Modes announced were Season Mode, Success Mode(Success In Paradise League), Exhibition, Arrange, League, Homerun Competition, and Practice.

-There is a card system used for gamers to collect all 1000+ cards of MLB players. 10 cards per pack.

-Pitch speed and counts can be converted in both Japanese and American style. Also, backing music will be guitar based.

I wonder what they're gonna do with the max speed in success mode. Probably wont let u change to m/h in there, or else it's gonna get confusing on how to increase it.

also there will be different offspeed pitches i'd think.

success mode's always been my favorite mode (i know i aint gonna finish the whole pennant, so there's less point playing that mode than just regular exhibition matches), i hope they can tweak it a bit and make it better. Didn't like the idea of the double tag in academy mode for 12, it made things too hard. Also in 12~ket, they tweaked a little of the small stuffs and made it difficult to raise good pitchers (u get taken off after 6th inning unless u have a perfect game going pass that, and u still will get pulled at the end of the inning if u give up a hit/walk, even if u have A stamina and could've pitched a complete game easily).

i wish they can include more looks for players instead of everyone looking the same round faced hairless look. I'd love to see players with their only type of hair style so they're more unique and stuffs...well, the entire mlb staffs could be too much, but at least they can have a few different looks, just to make it neater.

I also saw on gamefaqs.com that they are now posting a release date of Apr. 1 for PSP Pawapuro. I wonder if that was announced at the same time as Pawamajor. Anybody know anything about that from their poking around? Also, any word on Pawamajor potentially making it onto PSP?

Though of note, as a former member of Gamefaqs all release dates on there are speculated. Right now, it's all speculation when the game is coming out. Though, the release date does make since, but I wait for more information in the following months on the game, before saying what the actual release date is.

so will this game have japanese teams in it as well as MLB? I have played a million MLB games and would like to try some besuboru for a change.

I'm guessing that this game won't have Japanese teams.

If you want Japanese teams, just import Pawapuro 12 Ketteiban and/or Pro Spirits 2. Both are currently available.

But you'll need a slide card or mod chip in order to play these games on a North American console.

which would you reccommend? I already ordered the slide card by the way. Thanks

get pawapuro 12 for fantastic gameplay and massive replay value


get Pro Yakyuu spirits for geat gameplay and graphics

Well, Jom and I have spread the word out about this game to american fans at operationsports.com, but like I expected, they were turned off by the graphics. Man, I wish Konami would still release this game in the U.S. I really want to play My Life in english.

i just thought it would be great in major league pawapuro if you could start playing in NPB then get posted to MLB.

MWJR86,

I agree with Skinz' recommendations. Though I play Pawapuro exclusively.

BigManZam,

In an earlier post you said, "Announcing and menus will be bilingual."

Do you have any more information on this? I realize that you probably don't, but I just thought I'd ask.

English announcing sounds nice, but I'd really like to know more about English menus.

Official site is up. Nothing up yet.

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/pawa/major/

If I had more information about the bilingual parts of the game, I'd give it to you.

Who's that suppose to be with the cardinal cap? Is that So Taguchi? They should've have someone with more star quality like Pujols.

Some new info from Famitsu. Here is the Yankees order that was shown on a pic. Positions are used with the American style LF, SS, P, etc.

1. Damon (CF)
2. Jeter (SS)
3. Rodriguez (3B)
4. Giambi (1B)
5. Matsui (LF)
6. Sheffield (RF)
7. Posada (C)
8. Williams (DH)
9. Cano (2B)

Gamekult.com (I think its a French site) lists Pawapuro Major League's release date as May 11, 2006.

But who knows how accurate this date will prove to be...

Even though this information seems sketchy, I should have included the link. Sorry. Here it is:

http://www.gamekult.com/tout/jeux/fiches/J000076704.html

5/11 is now the confirmed release date.

I wonder if they will tweak the speed a bit, coz there are way more hard-throwing pitcher in the MLB than NPB. It's gonna be hard to hit those pitchers who's constantly throwing in the high 90s.

Also how much difference will the off-speed pitches be compared to the regular pawapuros? will they make changeups into the most regular downward moving pitch instead of forkball in japan? coz there aint many people in the MLB who throws the forkball as compared to japanese players. Also will they just replace shutto with two-seem fastball? or will they have some other stuffs??

I think you'll see a ton of moving fastballs, change ups, big dipping curves, and cutters. The one thing American guys notice when they see Japanese pitchers is how straight their fastballs are.

I also think they should add the ability to bean a player on purpose, adding a chance of injury for them. If you do it too much, it should cause a scuffle and then a decent sized suspension, so you can't abuse it. I'll be very disappointed if they don't fix deadballs in this game. Pawapuro has ALWAYS been weak in this department. I think all yakyu games have been. Pro Yakyu Team O Tskurou is the only game to do it right. Too bad that game's power hitting is messed up, because I had an entire Seibu lineup that hit double digit homers.

What else...I'd like to see a lot more fine plays. Homeruns should be at the wall more often. CPU should take more risks like running into the wall and diving. Players should watch their homeruns and walk to first, since most major league power hitters do that. A lot less complete games and more concern on the pitchers' arms would be nice.

Also it should be very difficult to steal bases. I think the arm strength of the major league guys will deal with that. It's the E and D arm guys in Pawapuro 12 who made it so easy. There aren't any dominating catchers other than Johjima and Tanishige.

New info...

-Waterfalls and things like McCovey Cove in San Francisco will be fully recreated.

-Season Mode goes up to 5 years and it includes playing games and being GM. It's basically Pennant Mode.

-You can take an original team and play as an expansion team in Season Mode.

hmm, so they shrunk the pennant mode to 5 yrs...

i just finished an auto-pennant with seibu lions (full 10 yrs). and i wish i had more yrs to play with, coz some of my pitchers were developing extremely well (one of them went from 145 km/h when drafted to 157 already).

so i suppose we will see wrigley's ivy as well too. I wonder how hard would it be to hit a homerun over the green monster eh?

looking forward to the release of this game, wanna see how they set the dudes' stats.

Official site is updated finally with lots of pics and a confirmed 5/11 release date. I hope Johjima isn't the #9 batter when the game is released. Yikes.

hmm, so for fastballs they have a direction bar as well, interesting, but something that should be in there.

cant wait to try it...

I meant to post this earlier, but never got around to it. And I hope I'm not just stating the obvious.

In one of the Pawamajor website's screenshots, Dontrelle Willis is throwing what appears to be a four-seam fastball ("four-seamer").

This could relate to Shinigami's observation that fastballs now seem to have a direction bar.

(Tim Wakefield's shown throwing a knuckle ball. Duh.)

Thank you again Shinigami for emailing me those Pawapuro 11 passwords for Aoki and Imae. And if you ever feel like it, it'd be cool if you made Akinori Otsuka for Pawapuro 12. You could use the Pawapuro 11 Otsuka password as a guide. This way, people could create Team Japan in Pawapuro 12 and 12 Ketteiban too. Anyway, just a thought.

...the Pawapuro 11 Otsuka password is at pawasuq.com.

I took a crack at Otsuka today, and it was all going pretty well (I kinda even upgraded him a 'little' giving him a changeup instead of just his V slider and slider'...

and right before the end...i pressed a wrong button and ended up screwing his 152 fastball...

so i trashed this otsuka...

gimme some more time, should be able to make one that's close to the real life one i suppose.

Take your time. Thanks for trying. You're the man.

otsuka's done. Will send u the pw maybe tomorrow or something.

I'd say it's about right...altho there's two attribute that should not be there. >__>

Awesome.

Not to sound naggy, but which two attributes? Or I'll figure it out on my own when I compare your password with pawasuq's. Although I'm not really certain how acurate pawasuq's is either!

Thank you again.

none of them are bad status. the extra one is heavy pitch and pinch 4.

it's even harder in 12 to not get events (especially with an almost-complete town i got), so it's pretty hard to get it exactly the same.

Also bad status other than batter strikeout are soo hard to get (in otsuka's case it's quick 2) that unless u use codes to make it u really wont know how many tries it takes.

this otsuka is pretty usable, well....could be a little stronger than the real life one, but it's somewhat close i suppose.

Any new info about the bilingual menus?

Menus actually won't be bilingual. The bilingual parts of the game will be screen presentation(positions, balls, strikes), commentary, etc. This is still a game marketed towards Japan only.

On another note, I found some stats Famitsu displayed recently. Check these out.

Ichiro - Arch 2
Meet B 6
Power B 129
Speed A 14
Arm A 14
Defense B 13
Error B 13
Positions CF RF

Subposition 4
Base Stealing 4
Injury 4
Slap Hitter
3 Hit Game
Bunt Master
Infield Hit
Chance Maker
Low Ball Hitter
Spider Catch(New Ability)
Laser Beam

Alex Rodriguez - Arch 4
Meet C 5
Power A 205
Speed D 9
Arm B 12
Defense B 12
Error C 10
Positions 3B SS

Subposition 4
Injury 4
Power Hitter
Opposite Field Power
3 Hit Game
Strike Out
Walk Off
High Ball Hitter
Head Sliding
Intimidator

Akinori Otsuka - Speed 151 km/h
Control B 158
Stamina E 53
V Slider - 4

Endurance 4
???(Anyone wanna help me with this one?)

Mariano Rivera - Speed 156 km/h
Control A 185
Stamina E 56
Two Seam - 1
Cutter - 6

Endurance 4
???
Poker Face
Intimidator

Anyone who wants to check it out, go here.

http://shilog.whitepage.velvet.jp/?eid=485880#sequel

that's 'nigetama', errr...translates to something like escape pitch/safe pitch or something, i really dunno how to translate it correctly other than word for word

it's when u throw a mistake pitch, it will usually adjust and end up on the outside rather than straight in the middle of the plate, so the pitcher wont pay for his mistake.

hmm, so they aint giving ichiro AH attribute...he'd have it for sure if it was using 2004 data, when ichiro broke the hitting record

but still i think he should have the AH attribute, he's been so consistent since moving to MLB he should get it.

wow, A-rod's power is even crazier than anything we've seen before in pawapuro

cabrera had like 190ish i think back in the days, so did rhodes

Ohh, one more thing

I think these stuffs might not be exactly accurate

coz they have ichiro's stance as open stance, while he should be the furiko/swinging type

they have ichiro's stances in the past pawapuros as well, so there's no reason he gotta change to an open batting stance

also i suppose otsuka should get a slider as well. He does use his v-slider a lot, but he also throws a pretty hard slider as well.

I am leaning on the fact that stats will be a bit different when the thing comes out

Yeah, I think there's a chance it's BS, because of the no slider from Otsuka. That was confirmed in one of the screenshots. Also, I agree with the Ichiro batting stance.