Last Friday, Major League Baseball announced that it will be expanding its playoff format to a ten-team field starting this season: each league’s three division champions will get a first-round bye while the four- and five-seeds face off in a one-game Wild Card round, with the winner being pitted against the top seed in the Division Series. As you can imagine, that throws a wrench into the plans of Sony and 2K Sports, the respective publishers of the two licensed baseball games, MLB 12 The Show and MLB 2K12.
But the playoff format change became a possibility once MLB and the league’s Players Association signed a new collective-bargaining agreement last fall, and it appears that 2K did a better job of planning for it: when both baseball games launch tomorrow, March 6, only MLB 2K12 will offer the new format in its full-season modes, 2K Sports told Kotaku last week. (The old eight-team setup, which was in effect from 1995-2011, is still an option.)
When reached for comment over the weekend, MLB 12 developer Sony San Diego could not say how or whether it would be able to implement the new playoff structure this year, telling Destructoid that “the team is currently discussing how best to handle” it. It’s ironic, since The Show has always been praised for its greater authenticity over MLB 2K. In this respect, at least, MLB 2K12 beats MLB 12 for now.
Baseball’s New Playoff Format Will Be Supported in MLB 2K12, Whether It Happens This Year or Not [Kotaku]
MLB playoffs expanding this season [Fox Sports]
