Pawapuro-kun throws a pitch on a banner announcing WBSC eBaseball Power Pros is now an Olympic eSport

Friday Starter – Vita Means Life, and Power Pros is an Olympic Esport

 March 3, 2023  Posted in Friday Starter 275 Views

WBSC eBaseball Power Pros named an Olympic Esport

In an announcement that has gone viral outside the world of baseball games, the Olympic Esports Series announced its official games for 2023. Notably for this site, the new WBSC eBaseball Power Pros was named as one of them. Official “Olympic qualifier events” will take place in the game’s online mode over the next two months, with the winners going to an in-person competition in Singapore.

Notably for most people, maybe three of the announced games have actual Esports cultures already in existence (chess on Chess.com, Gran Turismo 7, and sure, let’s throw in Power Pros). There were lots of odd choices like Just Dance, Tic Tac Bow, and Tennis Clash. I don’t know, maybe there are big competitions for these things somewhere.

Konami clearly had their sights on exactly this sort of thing in releasing the game and slapping the WBSC name on it to attach it to existing international competitions. Best of luck to anyone competing in the qualifiers, and here’s hoping Konami has ambitions for the series in English beyond a teensy $1 online-only game, though it has been a lot of fun these last few weeks.

PlayStation Vita joins the 30-30.club collection

Vita means “life,” and PlayStation TV means “Vita that isn’t handheld and can’t play half the games but it can hook into your TV and is easier to record for someone who’s trying to record every baseball game.”

This is my way of saying I bought a PlayStation TV and a big lot of Japanese baseball video games for it. My initial count is 19 baseball video games for Sony’s alternately beloved and maligned old handheld, and here are nine of them in my possession now.

Three others are free-to-play games that I suspect aren’t fully playable anymore (Pawapuro Championship 2017, 2018, and the card game Pawapuro Stadium) but I’ll have to try and download ’em and make sure of that.

Look forward to more footage of the same games I’ve already recorded on PS3 and PS4 but now with a framerate befitting a handheld port.

A screenshot of someone who cannot possibly be Adam Jones

From the Nintendo Wii version of Major League Baseball 2K10

A Pawapuro 3 Success Mode TAS speedrun for your viewing pleasure

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