Baseball winter meetings are happening right now as baseball fans are eagerly waiting to hear news of free agents signings of Gerrit Cole, Anthony Rendon, Madison Bumgarner, and Josh Donaldson.

Then there’s this curveball, not from live baseball, but the video game world of baseball.

In a joint announcement by Major Leagues Baseball (MLB), Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), and San Diego Studio, they revealed a multi-year extension for the development and distribution of the best-selling MLB The Show video game series.

The press release stated, “In addition, the historic expansion of the long-standing partnerships will be MLB The Show, for the first time ever, to additional console platforms beyond PlayStation platforms as early as 2021.”

Although the press release did not name or indicate which gaming platforms it may expand to, Nintendo and Xbox expressed their excitement on Twitter immediately after the announcement.

MLB The Show will be the first Sony-published game appearing on a non-Sony console. The potential lineup of 2021 will coincide with the launch of the next-gen consoles of PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Project Scarlett.

San Diego Studio has developed MLB The Show exclusively for Sony since 2006 on the PlayStation 2 and PSP platforms. The company also developed another MLB video games since 1998. San Diego Studio is owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which produces games exclusively for Sony PlayStation.

Baseball video games are minimal due to the licensing by MLB and MLBPA. MLB Advanced Media is the biggest competitor with an arcade-style R.B.I Baseball series, which is available on all platforms. It is not considered as a significant simulation baseball game to MLB The Show series.

The biggest competition was from 2K Sports with the MLB 2K franchise, which decided to end its relationship with baseball in 2014.

To non-baseball fans, the news should also hint at a possible future in the video game industry. With Sony Interactive Entertainment, it means they are ready to move beyond distributing exclusive video games on their own Sony PlayStation platforms. Some of the latest popular exclusive games developed by SIE included The Last of Us, Death Stranding, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last Guardian, God of War series, and 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man.

More information will be available at a later date. MLB The Show 2020 will commemorate the 15^th anniversary of the franchise with new features and gameplay. It will launch on March 17 of next year.

Source: MLB, MLBPA, SIE, Sony Studio