Live baseball games as cartoons in Japan

Apr 11 2005 - 04:45 PM ET | Data

Select professional baseball games will be presented as cartoons for DoCoMo subscribers in Japan. The games (both American and Japanese) will be shown in real time, but in the look of a video game. bq. This is not fantasy baseball, and not an online game, but rather The Real Thing -- rendered into animated avatars standing in for flesh-and-blood players. Not only does this save bandwidth (only textual stats need to be transmitted), but the display of games can be optimized for mobile devices. Camera angles and onscreen graphics used for TV viewers are not ideal for mobile viewers. There is no word if similar technology will make its way to America, where the MLB already streams baseball audio (and some video) to phones. ESPN Pro Baseball Gamecast is the most similar application available for US fans.

---