Yesterday, Take Two finally confirmed what we all knew was inevitable: the MLB 2K series is now dead and there will be no baseball games on Microsoft's consoles this spring.

Coincidentally, a month ago Glenn Wigmore, senior staff writer extraordinaire, brought up the 'Ghost Game' of MVP Baseball available only in Korea, MVP Baseball 2012. We watched the videos and couldn't help but feel a bit reminiscent and hopeful about EA's baseball product's viability. Could EA relaunch the MVP series? Does MVP 2012 provide some clues as to what such a product could look like?

Here are some thoughts.

Glenn Wigmore: Looking at YouTube clips for MVP 2012, the Korea-only online game using the original MVP assets, I still get a bit wistful. There it is — MVP Baseball, and others are getting to play it. Sure, it's a far cry from anything that would pass muster in today's next-gen landscape, but it evokes such good memories of MVP Baseball 2005, with its extensive modes, rock-solid gameplay, brilliant "hitter's eye," and stable online play.

There was so much to like about MVP 2005 because it made very few false moves. I still regard the hitter's eye as one of the most elegant innovations in sports games over the last 20 years, as it allowed both the pitcher and the batter to square off on a relatively even playing field. As the batter, you had tangible feedback on what pitch may come next, and if the pitcher had a long delivery, you would see the flicker of color on the ball even more clearly. It gave you the perfect amount of intel as the batter, but it could also be used against you by a crafty hurler.

When the ball was in play, the action was just as satisfying. Even though there probably wasn't enough infield play back in the 2005 game, it still looked great, with an awesome throwing meter and some spectacular animations when turning a double play. These animations were evident all throughout the game, from the batter's box to the outfield. On top of all of this, the game worked amazingly online. It's been absolute nonsense that MLB: The Show has been unable to create netcode on par with MVP 2005 after all these years — completely unacceptable.

EA certainly hasn't given much hope to reviving the series anytime soon, but once the dust settles on where sports games are a year or so from now, maybe there's room for this contender to step back in the spotlight and create some competition in the baseball space.

Caley Roark: Glenn's correct; it's tough watching MVP Online and thinking of what could have been.

MVP 2005 remains one of those "landmark" games in our genre: titles that, at the time they were released, were the best at what they did -- and in some ways have yet to be surpassed. Glenn's mentions of meters and the batter's eye are spot on. I'll additionally spotlight the pitch movement replays, the mini-games that actually trained you to be a better player, the "gamey" yet satisfying argument system, the "build a stadium" modes, etc.

When the exclusive licenses were doled out, I always felt EA and 2K payed for the wrong one. I realize that Madden was the money maker, but EA's baseball game was superior (as was 2K's NFL game). It's possible, without those deals, we are writing about how good early MVP footage looks on the Xbox One and simulating the playoffs with NFL 2K14. Instead, Xbox users are without baseball and Madden has only made a few impactful strides over the past decade.

Wistfulness aside, looking at this footage, it's also clear that this version of MLB wouldn't stack up with the advancements made in The Show over the past few releases. However, it is nice to see that MVP exists in some form somewhere -- even if we have little to go on and no hope of playing. And, as Glenn states, it's possible EA ports this thing back to the U.S. sometime during this generation.

Chris Sanner: It's almost as if I saw a ghost -- a living and breathing ghost residing in Asia of course. While MVP Baseball 2012 would need several very serious enhancements to be a viable competitor in the current marketplace, all of that smoothness of the MVP series is still intact in the online-only baseball game from the East.

The MVP series had a good run even after MVP 2005's leave, with some key gameplay enhancements continuing into the college series. The problem with EA ever reviving baseball in the future will be using that code base in order to get a head start on any new baseball attempt. Let's face it, EA isn't exactly the best at taking older but very successful products and building off of them for modern games -- if so NBA Live 13 would have been a thing, much less NBA Live 14.

However, a few tweaks to the MVP engine is all you'd need for the gameplay to start off. Visually, MVP 2012 looks pretty solid despite the engine being rather dated. A lot of what baseball games are now came from this series -- which itself was inspired by the High Heat Franchise. There is still enough of a core here to see the gameplay be competitive with the competition from the get go if the necessary updates and upgrades were made in year one.

Here's the real deal though: I can't see EA sitting around with such a wide opening with a still quite popular sport in America. Yes, baseball isn't as popular as it was, but it's still a very well attended and watched sport. MVP 2012 looks smooth, and while its basically a port of the old MVP 2005, there's no reason to believe that if work began soon EA couldn't deliver at least a satisfying baseball experience on XBox consoles in the Spring of 2015.