R.B.I. Baseball 18 comes to PS4 and Xbox One today, Switch later

R.B.I. Baseball 18, the latest entry in MLB Advanced Media’s revival of the old-school sports franchise, is launching today on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The game is already available on the Xbox Store, while the PS4 version has yet to go live on the PlayStation Store.

As for the other versions of R.B.I. 18, you’ll have to wait a bit. The game will launch on iOS a week from today, on March 27. The Nintendo Switch and Android versions are coming in “spring 2018,” MLBAM said in a news release. That suggests that they won’t be released in time for MLB’s opening day on March 29 — the first time in 50 years that every team will start the season on the same day. It’s effectively a delay for those versions, since MLBAM previously gave a March release window for R.B.I. 18.

Owners of Android devices can get their baseball fix on March 27 by playing a different MLBAM title, MLB Home Run Derby, which will go live that day on both Android and iOS. This year, MLBAM has updated the perennially popular free-to-play game with a total of 20-plus ballparks, including 2018 All-Star Game host Nationals Park outfitted for the Midsummer Classic and Home Run Derby. The developer has also added “hi res renderings” of over 50 Home Run Derby participants, going back to 2010. In addition, MLBAM reiterated today that it plans to launch a virtual reality version of the game for the first time — the company is bringing MLB Home Run Derby VR to PlayStation VR and HTC Vive this spring.

MLBAM has a lot riding on R.B.I. 18. It’s the first entry in the series that the studio has developed internally; the company spun up a full team of more than 30 people to make the game. It was part of an effort to overhaul the franchise for R.B.I. 18 and deliver a major upgrade over previous titles, with new features like revamped graphics and presentation, a franchise mode and a Home Run Derby mode. For more, check out our in-depth feature on the development of R.B.I. 18.