My Journey Trying to Get MLB The Show Running on PC
Alright, so I got this itch, you know? Baseball season kicks off, and all I wanted was to fire up MLB The Show on my trusty PC. I spend most of my gaming time here, got my setup just right, seems logical, right? So, I started my quest, thinking it’d be straightforward.
First thing, I hit up the usual spots online, searching around. How do I get this game on PC? Pretty quickly, I hit a wall. Found out Sony makes the game, and they’re kinda stingy about putting it on PC directly. It’s mainly a PlayStation thing, though now it’s also on Xbox and even the Switch, which is weird, but still no straight-up PC version listed anywhere official.
Okay, Plan B. I kept digging. Started seeing mentions of ways to sorta, kinda play it on PC. The main things that popped up were:
- Xbox Cloud Gaming (used to be xCloud)
- PlayStation Remote Play
Trying Out the Cloud
The cloud gaming thing seemed like the most “official” workaround. Since the game is on Xbox Game Pass, if you have Game Pass Ultimate, you can stream it. Fine, I thought, let’s give this a shot. Already had Game Pass for other stuff, so that part was easy.
Fired up the Xbox app on my Windows PC. Found MLB The Show in the cloud gaming section. Had to make sure my controller was connected properly via Bluetooth. Clicked play. It took a little while to connect to the server, saw that little rocket ship animation they show.
Then, bam, the game menu popped up on my PC screen. Looked just like it does on console. But… playing it was different. My internet’s pretty decent, wired connection and all, but there was this slight… hesitation. You know? Moving the menus felt okay, but timing pitches and swings? That felt a tiny bit off. Sometimes the picture would get a bit blocky for a second if the connection hiccuped. It worked, technically. I played a couple of innings. But it wasn’t smooth like a native game. It felt like I was fighting the stream sometimes, especially for hitting.
What About Remote Play?
I also looked into PS Remote Play. I do have a PS5 sitting there. The idea is similar: the game runs on your console, and streams the video to your PC. You connect your controller to the PC and play remotely.
Downloaded the Remote Play app on my PC, signed in, and connected to my PS5 (had to enable it in the console settings first). Again, the game screen showed up. It felt maybe a little more responsive than the cloud streaming, probably because it was just streaming across my home network, not from some distant server farm. Still, it wasn’t perfect. And the big downside? My PS5 had to be on or in rest mode the whole time. Kinda defeats the purpose of playing on my PC if my console is still doing all the heavy lifting right next to it.
So, What’s the Verdict?
Look, after messing around with both cloud streaming and remote play, my conclusion is kinda meh. Yes, you can absolutely get MLB The Show displayed and playable on your PC monitor using these streaming methods. It’s not a myth. I did it.
But is it the same as playing a native PC game? Not even close. There’s always that little bit of input lag, that slight visual downgrade when the stream stutters. It depends heavily on your internet connection for cloud, or your home network for remote play. For a game like MLB The Show where timing is everything, that little bit of lag can be really frustrating.
I also briefly considered if emulation was possible, like maybe a PS4 emulator? But nah, that seemed like a dead end real fast. Emulating modern consoles like the PS4 or PS5 well enough to run demanding games like this smoothly? That’s pretty much fantasy land right now. Didn’t even waste much time going down that rabbit hole.
So, here I am. I wanted MLB The Show on PC. What I got was MLB The Show streamed to my PC. It sorta works, enough for maybe some casual franchise mode stuff, but forget about competitive online play or really nailing that perfect-perfect timing consistently. It just doesn’t feel right. Really wish they’d just bite the bullet and make a proper PC port. Until then, guess I’ll just stick to playing it on the console when I get that baseball craving. Or just deal with the quirks of streaming. Kind of a letdown, honestly.
