Spring time definitely puts to mind the beginning of another great season of hardcore baseball action. To kick off the new season, Sony Computer Entertainment America has decided to show off its new Opening Day trailer for MLB 08: The Show (for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable), celebrating the start of the 2008 baseball season. Check out the new video trailer of this realistic baseball sim title by reading the full article after the jump.

Peter Moore definitely has some ambitious plans in store for EA Sports. With all the new changes he's implemented ever since he took over EA's sports division last July, he mentions that he plans to make EA Sports a visible brand in the sports industry itself someday. You can find out how he plans to go about doing this by reading the details in the full article.

While there's no doubt superstars of the NBA get a lot of exposure on and off the court, nobody can deny the intensity a good game of college basketball stirs up when you've got two of your favorite teams playing against each other. Electronic Arts is eager to please college basketball fans by bringing to us the latest in the series of March Madness basketball fever with NCAA 08 March Madness.

This year the developers have added a lot of features that's sure to please sports fans and gamers alike. The Dynamic Post Play feature gives players an in-depth and strategic view of what it's like setting up a play and dominating the boards. You can literally take charge of both your offensive and defensive strategy and choose how you want take down the opposition by posting up your people with this brand new feature.

Of course you can't ignore the other regular features in a college basketball video game. The crowd's Intensity Control Meter can swing the tide of the game by cheering their team on to victory or even lowering the opposing team's morale.

You can also check out other features like the Floor General Playcalling system, which allows you to customize your team's playbooks. Dynasty Mode is more involving than ever as you build your school's reputation as they enter the Pre and Post season NIT, the McDonald's High School All American game, and even an option to go online and play customized leagues and ESPN on Demand.

This year's cover will be graced by none other than former University of Texas small forward Kevin Durant. You can expect to see ESPN's trademark college basketball broadcasters Dick Vitale and Brad Nesslers giving a play-by-play commentary on each and every game you play. Fans will also be able to see Erin Andrews make her video game debut as the sideline commentator as she provides real-time injury updates and other insights and observations during the course of each game.

NCAA 08 March Madness is expected to come out this December 18 for the Xbox 360, PS2, and PS3.

You can't spell Disney without family entertainment. In an interview conducted by GamesIndustry.biz, Thierry Braille, Disney's vice president, talks about how Disney wants to concentrate on total family entertainment through video games.

Although Disney does not want to abandon their other, more mature markets, with Turok (PS3, Xbox 360) published under the Touchstone label and their other sports games under ESPN, Braille stresses that uniting families in a single activity can turn video games into a force for good. This would definitely put video games into a better light considering the flak they've been taking lately.

Braille had this to say regarding the matter:

We have titles that are for a younger audience, but there are more titles, such as High School Musical that could gather the family, after the Sunday lunch maybe, and we can imagine them singing together. This is Disney – this inclusive way to bring the family together and have fun.

He also commended the efforts Nintendo platforms have been making in forcing publishers into creating games "of the highest quality" for the gaming industry. Leave it to Disney to always put things into a more wholesome and morally upright point of view.

Tomorrow may be a big moment on the history of gaming as broadcast giant CBS formally becomes the first network of its class to show a video game tournament as a regular sporting event like other athletic spectacles such as the Masters and March Madness.

"There are an enormous amount of people of all ages who play video games these days, so we’re going to try to see if video games’ popularity can translate into a viable television audience," says CBS Sports Vice-President Rob Correa as he explores the possibility of people looking at this moment as a poignant event after a decade or so.

The tournament concerned is the World Series of Video Games which will be held in Louisville, Kentucky. Edited footage from the event will show highlights of face-offs between players in games such as Fight Night Round 3, Guitar Hero and other non-violent titles. First-person shootouts in Halo and Quake will sadly not make it on air because of the nature of the content.

The idea of the tournament and the coverage by CBS is pegged on the South Korean model which has an entire nation embracing gaming and making it a part of pop culture. A full-time coverage in the manner that ESPN covers sports isn't possible for video games just yet but for now, this is the biggest step game broadcasting can take in the US.

The CBS coverage is also a pilot test of sorts on how game programming in cable TV initiated by G4 and Gameplay HD can work in a bigger scale. The response of viewers will determine future plans on the coverage of electronic gaming as a sport on the network.

 

Although it's not confirmed by Take-Two Interactive if the restructuring operations being conducted ushered the timely departure of Erik Whiteford, VP of marketing at 2K Sports, it has been learned that the 14-year industry veteran will be leaving the company to join consultancy firm Odyssey Partners.

For two years, Whiteford has contributed to building the 2K Sports brand since joining the division back in May 2005. He oversaw the transition of 2K Games from its former label, ESPN Videogames, and was deemed responsible for the success of the NHL 2K, NBA 2K, MLB 2K and College Hoops 2K franchises, even while matched up against major competition.

Immensely ironic as it is, Whiteford worked at Electronic Arts for 12 years prior to joining Take-Two's sports games division. His position as Senior Director of the EA Sports brand kept the label at a unstoppable lead during the EA Sports legacy. He helped spark the launch of the EA Sports Nation online community while overseeing management, research and online marketing.

Soon, players of Madden NFL do not have to quit their game to know what's happening in real-life football.

Thanks to a deal between ESPN, Electronic Arts Inc. and The Weather Channel, football console games are going to be infused with real-life events. Imagine this: If you're playing a Madden game in Pittsburgh Steeler's Heinz Field home stadium, it will be automatically set to rain if it's actually raining over there in that part of Pittsburgh. Or how about this one: if a player is currently suffering an injury, his video game counterpart will be incapacitated from playing as well.

Aaron LaBerge, senior vice president of technology and product development for ESPN better explains this new feature: "So if a guy in the real world twists his ankle, you can't use him in the game until he gets back." Hmm, interesting.

Of course, fans of sports games are exhilarated, knowing that this new functionality is also applied in actual player statistics, which means you don't have to stop playing just to check on how your favorite quarterback is doing. More importantly though, this move should somehow quiet the issue about manipulation or miscomputations of stats in video game sports.

This new feature will be included with Madden NFL '08, scheduled to be out this August for Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 platforms. As  for the moment, there are no specific news whether this will be implemented in other Electronic Arts sports games. As always, we will be keeping you updated, so stay tuned!

July is right around the corner, and NCAA Football '08 draws near. The wait can get exhilarating, we know. Running yards won't make the game release sooner, but at least we've got some new info for you.

During an interview, Assistant Producer Ben Haumiller revealed some new features for the next installment of the series. He emphasized the new Motivation feature which allows your player to give teammates a Motivation boost and make them play better. To increase your own Motivation, you gotta juke, spin, score a touchdown, intercept or sack. In other words, you have to display your skills and play mad football to get your guys motivated.

Another feature new to the series is the Campus Legend, which requires you to earn your playing time before jumping into the fray. This means you'll have to do a lot of practices, training your man to be worthy to play on the field. During this part, there's also a little bonus for running close to someone better than you. If you practice with stronger players, you'll earn stat bonuses and eventually be as good or even better than the guy you're tailing.

Aside from cosmetic improvements such as improved collision animations or new tricks, one very convenient feature is the ability to download and stream ESPN videos. You can also save photos and videos of your game and store it in your hub.

For more details, the interview is on the embed below:

Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) head Hal Halpin has responded to the claims of Save the Children foundation and their study by labeling it as mere "pseudo research" while adding that the study never mentioned the role of parents and teachers in the creation of socially awkward children.

Halpin also noted that "this is another example of real world anecdotal evidence consistently flying in the face of pseudo-research." He claims that his own son plays DS with his cousins in as much as his daughter plays hopscotch. However both children, he noted, were interacting like normal kids.

He also surmised that "perhaps the parent and the teacher -- has failed the child," noting that blame shouldn't be put solely on modern forms of media. Also according to him, children playing video games is no different to adults who read the paper or watch ESPN  - they're just doing it for relaxation.

Halpin's conclusions further target our current society's negligent parents claiming that "pointing fingers and laying blame elsewhere makes some adults feel better, but it just isn't reality."

I don't know about you guys, but I've personally gotten tired of hearing how video games ruin lives. I seriously don't think Hitler got hold of Manhunt or GTA when he was young, and look at the havoc he wrought upon the human race during his time.

Some call it the biggest fight in the last 25 years: "The World Awaits" happens tomorrow night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas with two of boxing's brightest stars duking it out for supremacy in the ring. Fans who can't wait for the fight between Oscar "The Golden Boy" De La Hoya and "Pretty Boy" Floyd Mayweather Jr. ran a simulation using the Sony PlayStation 3 version of EA Sports' Fight Night Round 3 to find out who will win tomorrow's brawl.

The video shows an aggressive Mayweather using his fast hands to deliver lightning combinations to Oscar's body early on. This takes away a lot of Golden Boy's stamina and weakens his punches. De La Hoya, an Olympic gold medalist and a six-division pro champion, is knocked out after several punishing rounds.

Popular boxing sites like ESPN and Maxboxing, however, are likely to disagree with the simulation. Everyone who knows boxing well enough that Mayweather, who is recognized as the best pond-for-pound boxer today, is more of a speed fighter who will much rather stick and move than go for a primal stoppage like what we saw in the simulation. Mayweather is a four-division pro champ and is unbeaten in 37 outings.