So what's next for the Pro Yakyuu Spirits series?

Obviously they need to fix the bugs and framerate. They also need to do a lot more research, because the looks of a few big name players were off. Matsunaka has been wearing that elbow armor forever now, and he never even gets a regular elbow guard in PYS.

I think they need to make things smoother. Right now all the animations seem kind of clunky and patched together. Everything needs to flow a lot more. They also need to fix sounds and physics. Sometimes PYS doesn't even feel really fun. It seems like a chore at times. Does anyone feel the same way? I don't think I've ever really had fun batting in that series. It's probably because of the physics. The sound of the ball hitting the bat and the ball hitting the mit are absolutely atrocious. Should've been replaced years ago.

AI also needs a complete overhaul. Closers shouldn't automatically come into games in the 8th inning. They really do have a lot of work ahead of them before they can reach Winning Eleven level with physics and AI. AI wouldn't be that much of an issue if we had an online mode that didn't suck so much. PYS4 online was a complete joke. So if you knew enough Japanese to free up ports on your router, register a Konami club name, type in your name/password, then connect to the server...you still have to deal with crazy lag and PYS3 batting forms. Lag has nothing to do with being in the states, because I played Resistance against people in Japan with no lag at all. The PYS4 official site hasn't been updated since April. They released that game and completely ditched the online mode. They had no explanations for the old forms, the lag, the overall crappiness. They took their check and ran. If they want this series to do anymore than 50,000 units, they'll have to make some sort of an investment into online play. My PS3 should be a lot better at online gaming than my DS Lite, but you wouldn't know that by playing PYS4.

Yeah, the hitting part gets dull after playing for a while. Sure the homerun scenes for certain players look awesome, but the other aspects of it can certainly be improved drastically.

The defense IMO needs some fixing up as well, the fielding players just somehow feels very choppy with their movements, not smooth enuff to be real. I guess having the players in real size makes it hard to have them do REALLY smooth movements.

It's a chore playing through a whole match sometimes, even if u cut down most of those highlites and cutscenes (but cutting too much of these scenes sometimes makes me feel like I am not even playing a match)

But the pitching is GREAT. There's no argument about that. I've never had a yakyu game where I could use a pitcher for more than 5 season, and I did it with PYS4's MVP (altho it topped out around the 3-4th season, that's why I stopped in the middle of the 5th season)

Not sure about the online thing, as I've never had the chance to go online to play it. But as poorly as BigMan suggested, that needs BIG time fixing if they wanna attract more people to play. Competitive play = longevity for sport games.