MLB The Show 22 will arrive on April 5th and, for the first time in the series, you'll be able to play on Nintendo Switch. There will be full cross-platform support between Switch, PlayStation and Xbox. You'll be able to transfer Road to the Show or Franchise save files between platforms and have access to items across various consoles (though Xbox Series X/S and PS5-exclusive content will remain locked to those systems).

As with last year's edition, which was the first to land on Xbox, MLB The Show 22 is coming to Xbox Game Pass on its release day. That continues an unusual arrangement where a Sony-published title is available to Game Pass members at no extra cost. Subscribers can play via the cloud as well as on consoles.

This year's cover athlete is Los Angeles Angels megastar Shohei Ohtani. The pitcher and designated hitter had an incredible 2021 season, racking up 46 home runs and 156 strikeouts. It's pretty hard to imagine anyone else gracing MLB The Show 22's cover.

MLB is notorious for blackouts on streaming home games — you still need a cable TV subscription. The league might just loosen its stance in the future, though. As The Vergereports, New York Postsources claim MLB is in "talks" to launch a national streaming service that would offer home games without requiring cable. While details aren't finalized, it would cost between $10 to $20 per month depending on the market. The NBA and NHL are even "considering" partnerships, according to the sources.

If it goes ahead, the service would launch as soon as the 2023 season. MLB.tv would still be available for those who don't mind out-of-market games. A deal is "not yet close at hand," so it wouldn't be surprising if talks fell apart. An MLB spokesperson declined to comment.

The pitch would be simple, according to the insiders: MLB sees this as a service for young baseball fans who are either cord-cutters or never subscribed to cable in the first place. Viewership and in-person attendance have both dropped sharply (12 percent and 34 percent respectively) since 2019, and the pandemic wasn't entirely to blame. This could shore up numbers and keep baseball relevant for an audience that would rather not pay $100-plus for cable just to root for the home team.

There's little doubt this would be a gamble, though. Sports channels and cable providers are highly protective of their broadcast rights, and Sinclair alone owns the digital rights for 14 of 30 teams. Sinclair reportedly asked to run the service for "several years" before MLB shot it down. While MLB is in a strong-enough position to reject Sinclair's overtures, it could face a backlash from cable companies that would pay less to air games.

Twitter scrapped Fleets, but it hasn't given up on audio. A new voice manipulation update is reportedly in the works for Spaces, the Clubhouse-style talk rooms introduced in December. The so-called "Voice Transformer" was first outed by social media researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who tweeted that it would let you change your pitch or add echo to your audio. Soon after, software miner Steve Moser — who recently leapt to fame by unearthing new details about Netflix's gaming feature — revealed several different effects. The list includes Bee, Cartoon, Helium, Incognito, Karaoke, Microphone, Phone, Spatial, Stadium and Stage.

If getting people to tweet was a slog, convincing them to talk is probably even harder. In that sense, the voice-warping feature may push reluctant users, or those self-conscious about their voice, to give Spaces a try. The goofy nature of some of the effects could even help to create a less serious, and hopefully, more inviting environment.

It's also a feature that many people will be familiar with having encountered voice filters on Snapchat. Word of the Twitter Spaces update arrives just as Clubhouse has gone wide and shortly after Spotify's own expansion into voice chat with its Greenroom app. Not to mention, Facebook's launch of a Clubhouse clone. All four platforms will have to keep things fresh if they want to win the audio chat battle.

Kansas City stages a 10-mile opening day pitch relay using a baseball that you can text message.

Read more on MAKE

The post Smart Baseball Allows You to Message it on Opening Day appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.