MVP Baseball 2005

MVP Baseball 2005 is the final MLB-licensed game in its series, and widely considered one of the best baseball video games of all time.

MVP Baseball 2005

Release Date	North America: March 1, 2005 Japan: July 7, 2005
Platforms	PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PC
Developer	EA Canada
Publisher	EA Sports
Team Names	Real MLB teams
Player Names	Real MLB players
Cover Athlete(s)	North America: Manny Ramirez Japan: Ichiro, Manny Ramirez, Hideki Matsui, Hideo Nomo, Kazuhisa Ishii, Tadahito Iguchi Taiwan: Chin-Feng Chen

The next EA Sports baseball game would transition to college, with MVP 06 NCAA Baseball, due to 2K Sports acquiring an exclusive license for third-party MLB-licensed video games.

The game was released in Japan for PS2 only later in 2005. Taiwan received a PC release, with Chin-Feng Chen on the cover.

Gameplay Video

GameCube

PlayStation 2

Roster

All Major League Baseball teams are licensed, and the game has a license for the MLB Players Association for real player names. Two famous real-life athletes were replaced by fictional players due to their opting out of MLBPA or its licensing agreement: Barry Bonds (replaced by Jon Dowd) and Kevin Millar (replaced by Anthony Friese).

AAA, AA, and High-A affiliates for each Major League team are also included, with a mixture of real-life and fictional players.

The game’s default rosters are from January 12th, 2005. The game’s final official patch provided updated rosters as of December 13th, 2005.

Series Firsts

• Hitter’s Eye mechanic – Different pitch types will light up in different colors in the pitcher’s hand, helping with pitch identification.
• Create-a-ballpark – Create your own custom stadium.
• Owner Mode – A spin-off of Dynasty Mode that includes team financial decisions outside of the playing field like stadium shops and food kiosks, as well as allowing to create your own stadium.

Modding

See: List of roster mods for baseball video games

MVP Baseball 2005 is one of the most widely-modded baseball games. New MLB rosters are released by hobbyist fans yearly, and Latin American leagues have also been modded into the game in great detail in certain years. The PC version is the most accessible for modding, and MVPedit is the primary tool for roster creation.

PS2, Xbox, and GameCube custom rosters are also available, though not as freely and easily as those for PC. This eBay business is one of the best-known names for selling memory cards with updated rosters for each version of the game.

Physical Media

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  MVP Baseball 2005 Nintendo GameCube box art

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  Japanese PlayStation 2 box art