As 989 Sports continues to strengthen their franchises, Joel sits down with Kolbe Launchbaugh to discuss about MLB 2006's Pitcher Confidence feature and improved career mode.

No problem! I'm Kolbe Launchbaugh and I'm the Lead Designer on MLB 2006, 989 Sports.

Can you tell us briefly what we can expect in MLB 2006?

MLB 2006 picks up where MLB 2005 left off....

Our development team listened to our consumer base and added the little touches that they wanted in a baseball game. Gamers will now be able to check swing, drag bunt, take advantage of wild pitches and play with an all-new pitching interface all while experiencing class leading depth. You can expect a very different take on Career Mode that allows you to experience baseball like never before, a deeper and more user friendly Franchise Mode, all new AA and AAA teams, an all new Release Point Pitching system, improved batting, and an all new Play Maker Fielding system and the return of popular modes of play and features like Eye Toy Functionality, and Online gameplay.

Additionally, MLB 2006 sets a new benchmark for individual player animations by featuring more than 3,000 personalized stances, pitching animations and walk-ups. New for this year, MLB 2006 will also include individual swings, rituals and emotions. By presenting gamers with the finer details and nuances of the game, MLB 2006 provides an opportunity to look and feel what it's like to play in the Show.

In a nut shell, MLB 2006 provides an unmatched broadcast presentation that brings together on screen gameplay, cut scenes, animation, and sound to provide an engrossing authentic baseball simulation.

One thing we have heard a lot about in MLB 2006 is the improved career and franchise modes? Can you tell us what to expect from it?

In Career Mode, you can expect to experience the game from an all new perspective. The perspective of a single player trying to make it in the bigs. You create yourself, and attend any teams Spring Training sessions with the goal of becoming the next great walk-on. Once on a team, work your way through the farm system and eventually make it to the Show.

Franchise mode has received a huge interface overhaul that makes it not only better looking, but much more user friendly. To go along with that there are many new logic decisions that drive CPU trades, drafts, and play styles.

One thing that really intrigued me was the Pitcher Confidence. Can you tell us how this is going to work in the game?

It's a very fun system. As you succeed or fail, your pitcher will gain and lose confidence. A pitcher's high confidence allows the pitcher to paint the corners from the mound, while frequent mistakes will make it harder to hit the spots over home plate. This is a very dynamic system that not only changes on each instance of a success, but builds and multiplies each success or failure. For example, a strikeout is a good confidence booster, and if you were to say, strike out the side, you will get credit not only for the 3 strikeouts, but an extra strikeout streak bonus that will make a very noticeable difference. Successive failures have the exact same negative bonus.

Sounds fun. What sort of visual improvements have been made to the game?

I can't even begin to list them all. Every stadium, every player model, every head, every animation and just about every single piece of art in the game was touched in some way.

Fair enough... If you had to pick one thing, what was your favorite improvement to this year's game?

Career mode. We really were able to expand on the career experience through our new career system and the ability to Fast Forward to each appearance. The Fast Forward feature allows you to play an entire career, in nearly the amount of time playing a single season might take -- that's cool!

That's definitely a plus with gamers. What sort of problems did the your team encounter during the development stages?

We never have problems, rather we face challenges. That being said, there are always challenges when facing a shortened dev cycle -- which is the case with all sports games.

That's certainly true. And just for our viewer, why do you think we should go out and purchase MLB 2006?

In a nut shell, MLB 2006 provides an unmatched broadcast presentation that brings together on screen gameplay, cut scenes, animation, and sound to provide an engrossing authentic baseball simulation. Essentially, MLB 2006 is the most complete baseball game made to date on any console.

Well said. Lastly who is your pick to win the World Series in 2005?

Well... I'm a Dodger Homer... So The Dodgers of course!