On our forums, OS user LegendKillerOne asked the community if a mid-April release date would be okay for MLB The Show 24. As expected, it was mostly people saying “no” but I do want to at least entertain the thought for a moment.
LegendKillerOne’s reasoning for the mid-April release date is because many people like accurate rosters and many of the Japanese and Korean players (as an example) can’t actually be added to the game until they play real MLB games. SDS sometimes can add some of them right away, but usually it does take until mid-April or so to get them all.
It also would not be the first time we’ve seen a mid-April release for MLB The Show, but it would be the first that doesn’t come with outside factors pushing it to that date — Covid pushed MLB The Show 21 to mid-April, and the PS4’s release caused the PS4 version of MLB 14 to slip to May. With that in mind, I don’t think there’s any way we get a mid-April release date for MLB The Show 24.
In terms of responses to LegendKiller’s post, multiple people brought up the fact that they remember when The Show used to have early March releases (and even sometimes late February) releases. Spring training starts in February, and there was a time when the start of spring training was synonymous with the release of The Show, and some miss that a lot. Video games and real sports and the hype they build off each other is real, so it’s fair to want the two things to tie together. That said, we’ve mostly settled in to a late March or first week of April release window for most recent versions of The Show.
Another reason people want an earlier release date is because the community crushes it with rosters and amazing CAPs, and so while SDS might have the official rosters, plenty can find their own rosters online at this point. On top of that, folks treat the first month of the game as a way to look for bugs and highlight issues to SDS, and community members think it feels better doing that before “real” games are being played on their screens every night.
That all being said, we’ve got news on the horizon with the cover athlete coming on January 30, and I’m sure a release date is coming soon as well.
