Here we are in 2008 almost 3 years post-launch of the 360 and we have yet to have a solid baseball game. I love my 360 ,but my favorite games in the past have been baseball titles. This is what happens when there is no competition game makers get lazy and put out crap. EA sports was doing it with Madden games ,but there starting to do better. 2K is certantly doing it with thier series on the 360. There had to have been a lot of time and money invested in some of the new features i.e. player cards, which is just stupid stupid if you don't have solid game play. Game play should be the number one priority once that is solid then build around that. 2k sports has ignored that and has tried to mask it with inovation. Using the right analog stick to play the whole game is not inovation that's f****** stupid. I don't care what any 2K fanboy says about having skill with the analog stick that's not the way a baseball video game should be played. There have been other series that have been way more successful and better than 2k with the conventional control layout. The cursor for hitting is tried and true and best resemebles what it is like to actually hit. No you don't see a cursor in real life but the hand-eye cordination that it takes to hit a baseball is on the same level as lining the cursor up with the pitch in a split second and timing your swing with the "A button". As for pitching the best thing I've ever seen for that would be where a cursor for your aim starts out right down the middle and then you have to pull that cursor to where you want the pitch to go that is pre selected with A for fastball, or B for curveball and so on, and you have to keep that cursor pulled in that direction until your pitcher lets go of the pitch. The challenge is that the cursor always wants to be down the middle so you have to pull just right on the stick for your aim. I could keep going but these two things hitting and pitching are big ones in making a good baseball game.

What I'd really like to see, is a franchise that released a solid baseball game ,and then every year after that come up with new content to add to that core game. Kind of like you might see with the Sims. It could be done since more 360's are being sold with the 120 GB harddrive. If it was a game with excellent game play and frame rate, I would gladly pay $80.00 for the core game and then $20.00 a year for future expansion packs to add to that game. The expansions could include new rosters, more uniforms, a couple of new stadiums etc. If this were done we wouldn't have to start a new franchise with every new game. If this had been done with the launch of the 360. I could be in my seventh year of a franchise and it would still be fresh with a new disc of content that I could add to it every year. Also this way the game developer would not have to spend so much time and money re-inventing the game engine every year. If it was going to work though and be worth 80.00 a copy they'd have to be flawless with the game play and score like a 9.5 or something on websites like this. Now that would be innovation.