Pro Yakyu Spirits 3

Oh well, I'll have Major league Pawapuro to take its place. I'll still have pro Yakyuu Spirits 2 for my japanese league fix, but I can't wait to tackle on Major league Pawapuro.

Rakuten lists Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 as releasing for PS2 on 4/6. If this is true, I believe this will be the first time Konami and Namco go head to head on the same day with their baseball franchises. Here is info...

-In addition to rookies and all offseason transactions, Furuta's role as player-manager will be faithfully recreated.

-Number of players on each team has been increased from 44 to 50! Overall, taking trades and original players into consideration, a single team can have up to 70 players.

-A new mode called MVP Pennant can be used in Pennant to play as a single player. Originally, this was called Senshu Play and was very limited. Now this won't be limited to just starters, and you can play as a pinch hitter, relief pitcher, minor leaguer looking for a chance, etc.

-New Manager simulation mode in Pennant.

-There are a couple other novelty modes that don't look interesting at all. Just basically goof off modes to waste time and fill up menu space. Like a pitching version of the homerun competition.

-Updates have been made to Spirits Mode, though creating players in Spirits is pointless because the graphics are so detailed.

-Pitching has been tweaked to reflect pitch speed difference when a player is getting higher in pitch count and fatigue becomes a factor.

-Base stealing is revamped and has a system that makes getting a good jump even more of a skill.

-Something called a "block sign system" that I have no idea about. Maybe when you get signs from the coaches to stop or go to third, whichever.

-Two human players can now play the computer in a game.

-Color commentary from Yasushi Tao, Mitsuo Tachikawa, Kazutomo Miyamoto, and Yukihiro Nishizaki.

-I believe it also says the Konami Cup Asia Series is in.

Pitching has been tweaked to reflect pitch speed difference when a player is getting higher in pitch count and fatigue becomes a factor.
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This is the only thing that interest me. Its sad that this game seems like its another MLB game with useless modes. I thought Konami was better than that. WAKE UP KONAMI!!


I mean "block sign system"!? That thoguth sound promising at all

oops! I meant "That don't sound promising at all"

I'm going to wait until I see actual screens and know for sure it's gonna be on PS2. Press releases like this also fail to show little upgrades in gameplay, graphics, and animation that make all the difference in the world.


This is my point of view on this whole Konami vs. Namco thing right now, though. I don't like how Konami tried to pull one on hardcore yakyu gamers like myself and state how Spirits was going to be on Xbox360 and nothing else. I actually considered buying that piece of junk for about two seconds. Konami also haven't even stated a PS2 release date and I was VERY unimpressed with the upgrade from Pawapuro 11 to Pawapuro 12.

As far as Namco is concerned, the more I play Baseball Live, the more I fall in love with the game balance. It actually feels like real baseball. You wait for pitches, and just like in real baseball, you only get one pitch to truly hit in an at bat. Also, the whole feel of slumps and streak is represented well. True baseball isn't batting at a steady rate. It's having awful slumps and amazing streaks. For example, Akira Etoh started off the season red hot and hot 2 RBIs and 3 doubles in his first series against Orix. Since then, he's cooled off and is batting .280 or so. Also, Alex Cabrera couldn't buy a homerun for the first few games, and finally broke free with a double dinger game around 4/6. I love that.

All Namco needs to do is improve certain things like announcing, ouen songs, animations(especially defense), and extra modes. The improvements made to the graphics tell me that Namco is not joking around and is trying really hard. I think a new director came in and basically told them to get cracking if they want to compete with Konami. From the posts I read on 2ch.net, yakyu game fans are kinda getting fed up with Konami and asking them if they have any motivation to make good games at all. This is definitely an opening for Namco to release an overall superior product and then gain sales from word of mouth by the hardcore fans and game reviews. Their first huge hurdle is to win over the fans with the new graphics, then they HAVE to beat out Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 on the Famitsu review in order to have a chance.

You wait for pitches, and just like in real baseball, you only get one pitch to truly hit in an at bat.
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You hit it right on the money with that line. I've actually stop playing pro Yakyuu spirits 2 altogether and focus more on Baseball Live. Its funny because I had that game just sitting and collecting dust before I decided to play it again. Man, I was missing a lot.

I bought a japanese ps2 3 months ago with spirit 2004, spirit 2 and baseball live.
I too took for granted that spirit was better then Baseball live, but since I discovered how easy it was to updates rosters, create players, and put english names, it is my no 1 game.
I'm just having a hard time finding the right settings.
But this game is way underrated.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME THAT THIS GAME CAN BE PLAYED ON U.S VERSION OF XBOX360! IF NOT, I AM WILLING TO SELL MY U.S VERSION AND GET AN IMPORT XBOX360 JUST FOR THIS GAME!

COME ON KONAMI, LET'S EXPAND THE MARKET!!

Will this game have the Holds stat?

Yes.

Some rumored news from Famitsu.

-Konami seems to have taken a page from the YakyuTsuku franchise and divided defense up between catching, throwing accuracy, and throwing power.

-Yet another slight biting of Sega. Catchers now have an attribute for "lead" which is basically the signs and positioning the catcher gives. Certain catchers are ballsier and dumber than others.

-There are new abilities for players.

Furuta's stats...

Arch - 5
Vs Lefty - D
Vs Righty - D
Power - C
Foot speed - F
Throwing accuracy - A
Catching - B
Throwing speed - B
Total defense - S
Fatigue restoration - E

Sonzaikan(no idea what this is)
Base stealing - 2
Bases loaded hitter
Injury - 2
Bunt - 2
Block O
Cautious runner(??? seems like a new base running AI) Stable condition(Means his condition won't go up and down dramatically)
Season start dash(He will be ready to go from the start)
Smart lead(He will know weaknesses of opposing batters)
Balance lead(Will call a well balanced game with many different pitches)
Bold lead(Will possibly go for daring pitch calls in key moments)
Popularity
Team play
Patient batter

-He posted the Nippon Ham roster, but there's nothing different there. Macias is in, as is rookie outfielder Kawashima.

Here are stats for super Darvish. These are the stats he gets when he is at peak level. This is what happens in a pennant when he's developed as well as he can.

Fastball 155 km/h BC
Second fastball D
Slider - 2 CD
Curve - 2 DE
Second curve - 2 D
Fork - 2 DD
Sinker - 4 DF
Shoot - 1 CD

Control level for the second pitches are unknown.

-Matsuzaka has a new pitch, a cutter which has a movement of 2 and control of BE.

Someone is uploading scans from Famitsu soon. Hopefully I can get them up on my photobucket.

sonzaikan - presence

so it's probably similar to mood o in pawapuro. if furuta's in the game, his presence will be felt, and other players will perform better? or something like that?

Pics didn't fit on my PhotoBucket, so here's a direct link. Save the files to your computer, rather than draining the bandwidth each time you want to view pics.

http://kobe.cool.ne.jp/twt/1.png
http://kobe.cool.ne.jp/twt/2.png

Thanks to 2ch and the saint who went down to the store and scanned pics in a matter of 20 minutes.

Head to the official site NOW, because sites for both versions are up!

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/prospi/

360 version doesn't look that much better. I'm liking the new batting forms. I hope they got rid of all the old generic ones. That was a huge problem with my enjoyment of the game.

Here is translated info.

-There are now 42 different pitches. Pro Yakyu Spirits 2 only has 22. A couple examples of these new pitches are the knuckle curve and the sinking fastball.

-Stealing bases is now a lot more intricate. There will be more factors in stealing a base, such as whether the pitcher is a lefty or not. You can take off for second as soon as you want, but it will cost you if you're caught. There will be a grading system to tell you how good your jumps are.

-Block Sign System is put in to add more strategy to the game. This way, you can put a command in for a runner and you can focus all your mental energy into the at bat. Before, you had to do this all in a couple seconds. Now you can set the command for a runner at first, and he'll automatically know it's a hit and run situation.

-There are over 200 missions to accomplish in Maji Pennant and it goes up to 5 years. In addition to the draft, Free Agency and Tryouts have been added.

-Players in the PS2 version are confirmed to have necklaces.

-Shounan Searex is confirmed in the game, so farm games will play some kind of role in at least the MVP Pennant.

-Shingo Takatsu is confirmed to be in the game.

-It looks very much like old generic batting forms have been eliminated, as Hayasaka has a new form.

-There is now a much needed Face Edit in Spirits Mode.

Someone who played Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 at Koshien today reported on the game. He played a single game of Hanshin vs. Lotte on the PS2 version.

-There were 5 Xbox 360 kiosks and 4 PS2 kiosks

-Imae and Nishioka had their ouendan songs

-He lost 1-3 to Lotte, and couldn't report on walks or dead balls, because he swung very early in counts.

-Shunsuke had a fast speed sinker and Kubota had a cutter.

-New player specific batting/pitching forms he saw were for Sekimoto, Egusa, Akahoshi(upgraded), Sheets(upgraded), Kanemoto(upgraded), Imaoka(upgraded), Hiyama(upgraded), Satozaki, Imae, Nishioka, Saburo, and Franco.

-Lucky 7 celebration is the same, as are manager cut-aways

-He reports that the PS2 version looked graphically better than Pro Yakyu Spirits 2

Another report from Koshien...

-There is a more realistic drop to Igawa's circle change

-Sliders drop diagonally now, which is a rip off of Namco's series

-Very small changes to batting and defense

-Reported that the PS2 version overall looked better than the 360 version

-Miura and Kaz Ishii supposedly had generic pitching forms

-Karim Garcia and Hitoshi Tamura have their own specific batting forms

-I'm still not getting 100% answers on generic batting forms, which probably means they're still the same. That is the #1 thing I don't like.

-Facial expressions and certain graphics have improved slightly

-Noguchi and Kaz Ishii both have slurves

If you look at these two pics...

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/prospi/ps2/spirits/img/b1_img21.gif
http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/prospi/360/spirits/img/c1_img07.gif

Take a look at the shaded areas surrounding the different position players. This represents the potential area they can cover. More so, I believe it represents how good of a jump you get off the ball.

How can this be?!! Pictures on website shows significant difference between the 360 and ps2. I mean, it looks much more realistic on 360 with player models, lighting effect etc... I am thinking selling my US version of 360 for a japanese one just for this game. But if the ps2 is better, then I will keep my 360 and just buy the game on PS2.
Any news on whether or not this game can be played on U.S version 360?

No news yet on region. We won't know until someone tries.

As far as the difference in graphics go. You can tell in the pics, but you have to really know Japanese baseball.

1. Okawari-kun is too skinny. He looks like Nakajima in that one catcher view picture.

2. Kokubo is way too fat. His batting stance looks weird, too.

3. Caps look bad. Japanese baseball caps aren't perfectly round.

4. Colors look brighter on PS2.

In my honest opinion, I think getting the Xbox version would be foolish. I think the development B-Team were put in charge of the 360 version and the allstars were in charge of PS2. Konami were probably contractually obligated to release this for 360, hence only announcing it for 360 for a long while in 2005.

"No news yet on region. We won't know until someone tries."

if its a all region game does that mean i wont have to mod my ps2?

Only on Xbox 360 are some games region free.

I did mod my ps2, and own almost every baseball games there are on the market. Spirits 2 is by far the best baseball game there is to offer. I am sure that in the near future people would be to ability to mod x360. The only problem is the online ability might not work after the installation.
Again, wouldn't be much easier to make it regional free game (even without online ability) so that they can see how people (outside of Japan) react to this top-notch gameplay even if they don't follow Japanese Baseball. I believe they will try to make the big-head series available for the major. But that won't be to appealing to the U.S market where people expecting realism and life-like player models.

Konami updated the site with info on the new game systems.

-Most of the staff were confused by the Block Sign System and how useful it'd be, but it's proved to be very useful for bunts, as well as hit and runs. It's also good for bringing in a runner from third via grounder.

-The best jump a runner can get through the block sign system is "OK", so if you want the really good jumps for stealing bases, you gotta do it manually.

-Stealing off of lefties is very difficult.

-Pitchers can fake you out now. If you start as soon as the pitching motion occurs, you can still get caught.

-Defensive shifts have been tweaked. There is a new extreme shift for pull batters in which the short stop is basically in shallow center. This is for batters like Fernando Seguignol. In the majors, David Ortiz is given an extreme pull batter shift like this regularly.

-There are a few player specific defensive shifts.

-Full Power Pitching is something new, I believe. I don't know how it'll be used, but apparently it's there to represent when a pitcher really hunkers down and puts everything into a pitch. Take Matsuzaka's performance against Mexico. He got into a couple pinches and put a little something extra in his next few pitches. Anyway, your chance of getting a grounder or fly ball using this system is increased 1.5 times. The only thing is that it takes more stamina than a regular pitch, so you have to use it wisely.

-Real Batting Point seems awesome. It reflects real life situations in the game. For example, it's very difficult to get hits off of Shunsuke Watanabe. If you follow up a righthanded pitcher with Jeff Williams, it'll seem a lot tougher to hit. Also, it's easier to hit sliders going in than sliders going out. Basically it's a new option that makes the ball cursor a little tougher to pick up. It also has the ability to add movement to a fastball.

-One of the staff says he usually likes Medium Speed, but using the "real" level makes him use Basic Speed pitching to find the best balance.

-Difficulty has been increased to appease fans who complained hitting the ball was too easy.

-Batters won't take so many early pitches anymore, which will sort of make pitching a lot like Pawapuro in that you have to be more careful.

-There was a huge difference in the effectiveness of sideways moving pitches and downward pitches. This is now balanced.

-There are three kinds of super slow pitches now. They work really well to get you out of jams, but you can never abuse them. If you use them in bad situations, you will get get. If you use it as a first pitch, there's a good chance it'll be hit. Seems like mental strength and strategy are a huge part of Pro Yakyu Spirits 3.

-Throwing balls and keeping the hitter guessing is more important now.

BTW, check out both the PS2 and Xbox sections for new pics. I didn't check the Xbox section and I missed a few things. First off, Hoashi has a pitch called the slide palm. Second, Seguignol and Matsunaka have awesome looking batting stances. They look as realistic as possible.

Xbox 360 pic of Kiyohara that Konami hid on their site.

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/prospi/360/spirits/img/c1_img01.gif

Are we going to be able to buy Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 for 360 in the states?

Not likely, most Japanese published 360 games so far have worked in other regions.

Sorry, I meant have not worked.

no news on the region yet? im thinking abut gettng a xbox360 just for pro yakyu S3.

As with all XBOX and 360 games, the decision on region will be left to the discretion of the company, in this case Konami.

I seriously doubt Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 will be multi-region.

That is too bad! I have U.S version XBOX 360 and would hate to pass on this game. Maybe in a few month there would be a mod-chip to play all xbox360 games.
Has Konami ever tries to take a poll to see if people respond to it? Not work on region is simply a dumb move!

The XBOX 360 has no regional-restriction to my best knowledge, as I said before the discretion is up to the individual company on whether to regional restrict the game.

As in this case, I don't see Konami releasing this game in the United States, due to the fact Konami doesn't see it as profitable to do so with production costs and such. Right now some U.S. games are working perfectly fine on a Japanese XBOX 360, but overall the decision lies with the company.

Hopefully after Japan won the WBC, Konami will reconsider making the game Japan ONLY.
Well, does anyone know if MLB 2K6 will be region free or if it will be released outside of U.S?
I am a huge baseball fan and both games are on my top priority list, if MLB 2K6 will have no region code, then I will buy Japanese version of 360 and get both games.

I appreciate any respond

Apparently, the reason why no official video has been uploaded yet is because Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 has the new Yakult uniforms that were just shown yesterday. People are now claiming that stores are showing promo videos and the new Yakult uniforms are confirmed to be in. New promo books are also showing a modified Furuta on the cover to reflect the uniform change.

Official site has been updated for both PS2 and Xbox versions. Movies for both versions are up, as well as player lists.

http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/prospi/

-Missing players who will definitely start with the top team include Fujii(Dragons), Ishikawa(Dragons), Sumitani(Lions), Darwin(Hanshin), and Suzuki(Carp).

-Rick Short, who will go by the name of Rick, is still listed using his last name.

-Furuta has a better looking batting stance.

-Komiyama has a new pitch called the Fake, which is a fast pitch using the same motion as his Shake pitch, which is more or less an ephus pitch.

-Swallows do indeed have their new uniforms.

-Teppei Tsuchiya had a new batting stance, and since he is far from being a star player, it can be assumed that generic batting stances are all brand new. Big ups to Konami for that. That was something I bugged them about a couple times.

-I don't believe the second base ump was animated much in the previous versions. In the video with Serafini picking off Moritani, the ump gets in position to make the call and gives a good out call to Moritani.

-Katsuya Nomura looks a little bit too skinny.

-From the way Nishioka hit, it looks like the ball has better physics this time around.

-There are still huge collision detection problems when running with an individual player. Nishioka walks through Zuleta and slides through Matsuda.

-Lotte fans jump up and down during Nishioka's at bat. It's doubtful that this will be in the PS2 version, though.

-Looks like they got rid of the stupid slap hitting button.

-On a few personal notes, I don't like Konami putting Heiuchi in the Lotte starting lineup. What ever happened to Koichi Hori? Hayasaka is even higher in the depth chart than Heiuchi. Just a bonehead move by them.

-Xbox 360 version still fails to impress me much. I like the jumping crowd, but that's about it. If anything, I think those fancy light effects are overdone and detract from the game. The players look like they put on lotion and then covered their faces with a plastic coating. I also don't like the way the uniforms fit the players.

-It's really annoying how the person who captured the videos keeps moving the batting cursor around for no reason. Also, I don't like how the computer is set really low, so the pitches all stink.

The 360 looks good but not mind-blowing than I thought.

Another thing missing in the 360 looks to be the 1st base coach. After Nishioka got the hit, there was no 1st base coach to greet him.

The PS2 actually have better animations than the Xbox 360 version, Ha!

I just watched a video from Nagoya local TV in which they use Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 to simulate the first series against Hiroshima. Hiroshima gets swept, but here is what I gathered from the video.

-Looks like Kawakami has his own fluid pitching motion.

-Defense is pretty much the same. The only new animation I saw was Tyrone Woods catching a throw from third in a different animation.

-All new generic batting stances are now confirmed, since Kurihara, Morikasa, Morino, and Watanabe all had batting forms I've never seen. They look awesome.

-There are new cut scene animations for when the defense goes on and off the field. Also, the starting pitcher is shown coming out of warm ups between innings.

-Animations after contact with the ball has been made are brand new. It's hard to explain, but it'll feel a lot less robotic.

-There was a new dramatic camera angle that showed the runners in scoring position before an at bat. They were well animated and moving like in real life, with hands on their sides.

-Big score display after a run scores has been changed.

-Throwing balls into the stands after 3 outs is more realistic when throwing from far away.

I uploaded the video to YouTube for anyone interested. Credit goes to the good nerds at 2ch.net

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GKt2GxLLmpE

Konami updated the official site with movies and some info on Spirits Mode. The server is down right now, though. Here is the info I got from the update.

-Face edit looks very promising. The Japanese scene should be able to collaborate and make some very convincing edit faces for the players who didn't make the cut.

-Lee Seung Yeop looks like his batting stance was altered just a bit to make him seem more up to date.

-Yoshikawa(Swallows) and Micheal have brand new pitching forms. Micheal's in particular looks great. It's a very fluid sidearm style.

-As much as I didn't like the way Kiyohara and Nishioka looked in previous movies for the Xbox version, Ogasawara looked great. Seibu Dome also looked very good.

-I think we got a glimpse of the real pitching point system, because all the pitches had movement on them. Sliders moved downward and the fastballs even had movement. This should force me to switch back to analog stick batting and no more using the control pad. I may just adjust and still use the pad, because the lack of reaction on the pad forces me to foul off more pitches than usual, and that results in more walks.

-Apparently there are different animations for the Xbox ump and the PS2 ump. I didn't catch this the first time around, and can't watch the movies right now, so I'll check when the site is back up.

-In the biggest piece of news, it's been reported that Famitsu has given Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 a PLATINUM RATING! They've been giving more of these out lately, but it's still a big deal. Unfortunately, it didn't receive the biggest score of the week, as that was taken by the Xbox 360's Ninety Nine Nights.

Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 - 9/8/9/9
Burnout Revenge - 8/8/9/8
Shin Sangokushi Musou 4 Empires - 7/6/8/9
Over G - 8/7/8/8
Fight Night Round 3 - 8/7/8/10
Zoid Infinity Ex Neo - 6/7/6/8
Ninety Nine Nights - 10/9/9/9
Battlefield 2 Modern Combat - 9/7/8/8

Excuse me. I think that's actually Famitsu Xbox 360, and not the standard Famitsu magazine.

The motions of the Xbox umpire are not different from Pro Yakyu Spirits 2.

Is the pitching in this game similar to MVP 2005 with a gauge?

Weekly Famitsu reviews are in.

Pro Yakyu Netsu Sta 2006 - 8/8/8/8

Pro Yakyu Spirits 3(PS2) - 9/8/8/9

Pro Yakyu Spirits 3(Xbox 360) - 10/8/9/9

Personally, I think that Xbox score is BS. Famitsu has been promoting the Xbox pretty hard since it released, so I wouldn't doubt some bias being there. I honestly can't see many better things from the videos Konami has posted.

Also, I'd say we can add a couple points for both PS2 game reviews, because Famitsu reviewers aren't all baseball freaks.

Official site has been updated again with player attribute info, screenshots, and a couple new videos.

-Alex Cabrera has an updated, more realistic batting form.

-New scenes during games include Naoyuki Shimizu waving a towel before the game, Zuleta's samurai posing, pitchers talking to each other, congratulations after good defensive plays, mascot performances, Shinjo playing to the crowd, events between innings, Benny celebrating after a homer, Kawasaki calling for a time after hitting a double, and Shinjo talking to Nakamura after a triple. Basically a whole ton of new scenes.

-Real batting point system looks more amazing than I thought. The way the cursor moved when Sasaoka pitched to Watanabe looked very challenging to hit.

-Necklaces look very good.

-Fujikawa unfortunately has a generic pitching form.

-As good as the graphics look on Xbox 360, the faces look very suspect. Wada's neck just looks weird. Also, I just don't get the overall feel I get from when I see the PS2 videos. I think Konami didn't have much time to do this, and the PS2 version is the product of years of tweaking.

-Iwamura looks like he became an anorexic in his 360 pic.

-The staff filled us in on some new attribute info. There are two kinds of power hitters, Artist(Kiyohara, Kokubo, etc.) and Line Drive(Ogasawara, Iwamura, etc.). When the guys with Artist miss a power hit, they pop the ball up. When the guys with Line Drive do, they get more hits than others.

-Takeya Nakamura has a specific attribute called Okawari, after his nickname. I'm guessing it has to do with being able to hit multiple homers in a game.

-There are L Series pitches now and the L stands for Legend. These pitches, such as the Kamisori Shooto, were made famous by hall of famers.

-There is a new attribute for catchers to measure how good they are at blocking balls in the dirt.

the kamisori shutto, emoball, yoneball...etc ne

interesting indeed XD

but did u know u can also have those pitches in pawapuro 12 for ur success mode character?

Great Info!

In the Marines line-up, who's batting cleanup? I see Benny is batting 6th.

The Xbox 360 pics look really glossy and more cartoony than I expected, the PS2 pics actually blows it away.

I love the new scenes it finally shows the passion of players.

And the new attributes is something exciting to play with.

I don't know, its either this or Major league Pawapuro.

Is that a Manage mode I saw in one of those movie clips!?

Nah, but there is a pennant mode in which you manage only. That video you saw was MVP Pennant in which you control only one guy. They were controlling Watanabe Ken, who was pinch hitting in the 8th inning.

Oops. I meant Hiroyuki. Watanabe Ken is the actor in Last Samurai. Yikes.

I can't believe you guys actually think the PS2 version is better!!!!?? 360 clearly dropped the bomb~ Baggy pants, great lighting effect, more fluid motion and etc... PS2 looks exactly like last year's one. Don't get me wrong, I have Japanese PS2 (and Spirits series) and don't have the 360. But after seeing these clips.. I might have to get myself a import 360 console. Come on, name one graphic upgrade from last year's PS2 version, because I can't! The 360 is life like and you will really see the difference if you play it on a HDTV! amazing!

Let me school you here, newcomer.

1. The sleeves on uniforms look awful.

2. Faces look NOTHING like the real life players. Did you even see Iwamura in the WBC? Is he even close to looking like that anorexic monstrosity in the screenshots section? Lee Seung Yeop is pretty much the only guy who looks decent.

3. What is up with the necks? Aoki and Wada look like giraffes. It's terrible.

4. Their lighting effects are greatly overdone. It completely ruins the atmosphere. I think there will be a huge difference in atmosphere between the anime-like 360 graphics and when I play this on my PS2 with component cables(makes the colors amazing and very smooth) on my nice Sony tube television. No matter what the media tells you, tube televisions are still way more versatile than fancy plasmas and LCDs. I bought an LCD HDTV before I moved to Seattle and returned it in a day because I was so unimpressed.

5. If you wanna spend 400-500 dollars on a Japanese Xbox 360, 700-1200 dollars on a low end HDTV, 70 dollars on a copy of Pro Yakyu Spirits 3, and 50 dollars for Xbox Live...be my guest. I don't know what you do for a living, but I can't afford to spend that much on a single game. That's all the Xbox 360 has right now. Look at the past of Xbox 360 and look at the future. I don't see much there. I mean, if you see a lot more quality there than I do, then maybe you're easily impressed. I can't afford to spend close to 1500 dollars for a slight increase in graphics and player models that don't look realistic.

6. Name one graphical upgrade? I'll name a couple. Faces are more animated and umpires are perfectly recreated(Xbox 360 doesn't even have them all the time). There you go. This is the PS2 and it's in it's sixth year of life. The hardware has pretty much been stretched out to the max. Plus, Pro Yakyu Spirits has always been one of the better looking series on the console. I mean, if you want great graphics, wait for PS3. At least it'll have games and a future.

7. The only reason why the XBox 360 version scored so high in Famitsu is because Famitsu is receiving bigtime advertising bucks from Microsoft and they're suckers for online play. Online play means nothing to me when all the highly skilled players in Japan don't have Xbox 360s. How many people will be online during the peak hours? 5? 10? I'm also the kind of guy who could easily defeat any average player, so what's to stop them from quitting games prematurely?

You can go ahead and buy a Japanese Xbox 360 and gloat to us about how amazing the lighting effects are, but we'll be too busy having FUN and not analyzing the way the sun bounces off of plastic face Kiyohara. I guarantee you that you'll have that Xbox up on ebay within a couple months, because it'll totally be an impulse buy. You'll be ticked off when you get your credit card bill and realize you spent that much for such a minor graphical upgrade.

In Japan, the cleanup is actually considered the #3, #4, and #5 batters. I assume you mean who's the #4 batter, right? That's Saburo. Bobby's been messing around with who'll be the #4 batter lately, though. He used Benny on opening day, then Saburo, then Satozaki for a couple games. I think he should go with Saburo more often than not, unless someone really starts hitting homers. He earned that spot last year.

Ha. The guys on 2ch.net were saying JUST THAT about the 360 pics. They said it looked like an anime. They also shared my sentiments. It looked pretty in some areas, like the stadiums and stuff, but the faces were awful. This is probably due to them not having much time to work on a version of the game that they knew wouldn't sell that much. This is also probably the same reason why there are no umps or coaches on the bases for the Nishioka video. Notice that jumping crowd? I bet having the umps and coaches probably caused lag with the addition of the jumping crowds.

Yeah, I knew about that.

but we'll be too busy having FUN and not analyzing the way the sun bounces off of plastic face Kiyohara.
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Hahaha!!! That's hilarious!

I agree with Bigman, the faces don't look good at all and the whole feel to it is not right.

look at Zuleta here for the 360
http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/prospi/360/gallery/img/b3_03_p06.jpg

That looks like a colored graphic novel.

Look at Wada's neck on the 360
http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/prospi/360/gallery/img/b3_03_p08.jpg

What the heck is that!? LOL!



Look at a PS2 pic
http://www.konami.jp/gs/game/prospi/ps2/gallery/img/b3_03_c21.jpg

Now THAT's a neck.

So Saburo is hitting 4th? What about Franco?

Franco is DH now that Lee is gone. He also has his own batting form. I imagine Bobby will switch him between batting 3, 5, 6, and maybe 4 this year. When I play with Lotte in Pennant this is gonna be my order.

1. Nishioka SS
2. Imae 3B
3. Fukuura 1B
4. Saburo CF
5. Franco DH
6. Benny RF
7. Pascucci LF
8. Satozaki C
9. Hori 2B

Of course I'm going to be switching up the order a ton, just like Bobby. I'll have certain guys I use more against lefties and such. I'll switch Hashimoto and Otsuka in there every now and then. I'll do crazy Bobby moves and start guys like Kakiuchi and Hayasaka sometimes.

As for the PS2 pics, I think the zoomed up versions don't look amazing, but that's because they're using the same high res they did with the 360 pics. PS2 graphics with normal cables aren't meant to be zoomed up that much. That's why PS2 games don't look too great on HDTVs. Notice how much better the smaller pics look, though. It's not even a comparison between the PS2 Fukudome and the 360 version. I also don't like the 360 batting gloves.

Official site has been updated with promo videos and a 15 second commercial. Here is the information I've gathered.

-Defensive animations look a lot better and more refined. Whoever gave the report from a test play and said it's the same as PYS2 is a moron with zero observational skills.

-Kiyohara should have thinner yellow wristbands and I don't think Imae is wearing red wristbands anymore. Just little gripes.

-After hit animations look awesome. The one that really stood out to me was when Furuta hits one in the Xbox promo video and flips the bat.

-Looks like they went a little overboard on generic batting stances and gave the same one to Okihara, Hiroyuki Watanabe, and Jose Fernandez. Fernandez looks too skinny and shouldn't be swinging in the same style as Japanese players.

-I knew about this change from one of the previous updates, but they did a really good job with recreating the sound of a farm game. Only problem is that there is waaaaaay too much of an audience shown. The seats should be almost empty, and if there are ouen songs, they should be performed by a very small group of people.

-Face edit looks solid.

-Asia Series doesn't look too great. It looks VERY generic. The batter they showed wasn't even wearing batting gloves.

-7th inning balloons look amazing for the 360, but that's to be expected.

-More new or updated batting/pitching forms I noticed were Kazuhiro Wada(about damn time) and Shunsuke Watanabe(looks a little better).

-I'm hoping to see a few more animations for strike outs and homer celebrations.

Looks like Igawa has an updated pitching form too.

Man, the trailer looks great. I'm VERY excited about playing with the Farm teams

I should be playing Pro Yakyu Spirits 3 this time tomorrow. Unfortunately, I don't know when I'll be playing Netsu Sta. Anyway, if any of you guys are waiting and want info, I'll be here to field any questions.

Yes, please tell us how much of differences can we expect from last year's version.

Here is the HD trailer for the XBOX 360 version:

http://www.xboxyde.com/news_2761_en.html

Looks nice, I just hope it's region-free

Where and when we know if is Pro Yakyuu Spirits 3 for xbox 360 Region Free?

Take2 do not want sell MLB2k6 in europe and is region blocked, I hope for PYS3!!

How long does it usually take for them to send the game?

I don't know who you mean by "them", but it all depends on your shipping method and location. If you picked one of the cheaper ones, it'll take 5 business days or so.

PYS3 has been confirmed to be for Japanese 360s only.

How disappointing but expected I guess. Thanks a lot Konami.

I'm sure it's company policy. Thank Microsoft for not making that crappy system region free.

I just picked up this game for the PS2 if anyone is interested in purchasing it. I just cannot figure out the menus. Please e-mail me at robert.lovallo.b@bayer.com if interested.

I had both PS2 and XBOX 360 versions of this game, and sold the PS2 one. The XBOX one is so much better, and i dont understand all this talk about anime graphics, it looks nothing like anime...its amazing looking and everything is so fluid.... haha, someone was saying ps2 has a first base coach, wow!!! i didnt even notice if there was one in either game. I guess some people look for different things.

if you want a great baseball game, get xbox360, if you want to see a first base coach get ps2.

what pitching speed do you choose for games? im up to middlespeed, but its hard, faced Baystars Kroon the other day, damn! hard to hit it when the circle is at its smallest.

The PS2 version of PYS3 ranked 9th on the Famitsu top 30 list.

http://www.famitsu.com/game/rank/top30/2006/04/27/120,1146125797,52436,0,0.html