Konami is developing a baseball video game in partnership with the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) alongside an international esports competition.
Very little has been revealed about the game given the deal was just announced today, July 20, but the two companies said the new game "will allow the global baseball community, National Federations, and gamers worldwide to participate in a potential newly/jointly created WBSC esport international baseball competition."
It therefore appears the game will lean heavily into this competitive side, with Konami's representative director Hideki Hayakawa also describing it as a "global esports initiative".
He continued: "We wish to continue to support the development of the baseball and softball communities around the world through our games by utilizing our experiences in games and eSport."
The two companies also collaborated for a virtual baseball event last year that used Japanese-only game eBaseball: Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 to create events including a Home Run Derby and a full tournament.
"Following our partnership and immense success at the inaugural Olympic Virtual Series last year, the WBSC is proud to work with a video game publishing giant like Konami on this exciting new project, which has unlimited potential to further grow our sport and connect with audiences that we’ve not yet reached before," said WBSC president Riccardo Fraccari.
"The WBSC, together with Konami, aims to harness esport to expand the baseball population worldwide while adding another powerful tool for National Federations to attract and make our sport relevant to new audiences and players [and] gamers in their respective countries and territories.”
Konami's other premiere sports franchise, eFootball (previously Pro Evolution Soccer), has had a difficult few months since a pretty disastrous pre-release version was released last September. The development team attempted to "regain the trust" of players but even its major update in April failed to improve much, with IGN saying it was bad in our 4/10 review.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.