Konami Pitches MLB Power Pros Stateside

Konami Digital Entertainment has teamed with 2K Sports to create an American iteration of the company's Japan-only big-headed arcade baseball series, Power Pro, 2K announced today. MLB Power Pros will retail for PlayStation 2 and Wii this fall, and will be the first official North American release of a Power Pro title. The game leverages 2K Sports' exclusive MLB license to portray every MLB player in the series' trademark Precious Moments-like style, with enormous heads and small round bodies. The game will also feature representations of all the MLB ballparks. In addition to Season Mode, the popular role-playing heavy Success Mode of the Japanese series will be included in the game. Players take on the role of an up-and-coming baseballer "dealing with real-world situations of academics, part-time jobs, and other social situations." Though today's announcement didn't detail any Wii-specific controls, the game will use "easy pick-up-and-play mechanics in both pitching and batting," implying the possibility of motion-sensitive controls similar to those in Nintendo's Wii Sports baseball.