Can you believe that it is already March? March Madness is right around the corner, the NBA and NHL playoff chases are beginning to intensify, and the chill of winter will (hopefully) subside soon and give way to the warmth of spring.

And by now, many gamers are already playing the newest round of baseball titles for 2009, MLB 09: The Show and MLB 2K9 -- a sign that MLB Opening Day is on the horizon.

But because of the unfortunate gulf of quality between MLB 2K and The Show, there are probably many baseball fans, sports gamers and Xbox 360 owners presently battling with that ultimate question -- one that I have also been admittedly battling with. And that question is, "should I really spend hundreds of dollars on a PS3 just for one game?"

Is MLB 09: The Show worth a purchase of a new system?

True Marks of Greatness

Look, I am certainly no mathematician or rocket scientist, but I do understand what a killer app is and what elements it contains. For those who are not familiar with the term, a killer application or "killer app" is a computing term usually used to describe a unique feature or a piece of software -- or in this case a video game -- that causes people to buy the hardware it runs on just to own/play/experience it. These are typically your Marios, GTAs, Halos or Final Fantasys.

But how does The Show fit into that group? Well, it does and it does not

For one, I am not totally delirious, and I am not suggesting that The Show will ever approach the sales of a Mario game or something like a Gears of War. Nevertheless, The Show still possesses some unique attributes that ensure its place as a killer app for many sports fans.

The attributes I am hinting at are exclusivity and quality.

Seems simple, right? Well, it is. And if you go through any list of killer apps over the years, you will probably find that almost all of those titles possess those same traits. Exclusivity alone is why companies like EA, Sony and Microsoft are willing to pay millions to arrange for exclusive rights to an existing series, popular commodity, and yes, even a sports league or association. But the second portion, quality, well, that part is a bit harder to nail. And that is why The Show is in the position it is in at the moment.

Sony’s Real Killer App?

So how does The Show fit into those two categories? Well, the first, exclusivity, speaks for itself. As a game developed by SCE, The Show is essentially a Sony product and has been since its days on the PSone. In the past, though, baseball games were considerably more abundant, and fans had many more choices. At one point, there were a huge number of games out there to buy and play: Triple Play, All-Star Baseball, High Heat Baseball, Inside Pitch, the various 2K releases and probably a host of others I am forgetting.

But now, thanks to a marketplace growing ever more competitive and expensive, and the various licensing battles between 2K and EA, we are now left with two main baseball titles -- or three if you count Power Pros -- to fight it out for sandbox supremacy. And, unfortunately, for a few years now it has been a rather one-sided battle.

Now that is not to say I am totally discounting 2K’s offerings, but it is tough to succeed when you are competing against such stiff competition -- just ask the Blue Jays how they feel about being in the AL East.

Anyway, that also leads me to my next criterion, quality. And boy, does The Show excel in that department. For five years now, we have watched this series grow and blossom, and now it is one of the best sports series available today. Truthfully, I have been enjoying the series since before The Show even became a part of the name. (Maybe one day I will tell you all the story of how I literally trudged through a rough Toronto winter storm to pick up a PSP copy of MLB 2005.)

Simply put, it is a great series that has shown others how to properly manage and develop an exclusive franchise. In addition, The Show’s PS2 and PSP offerings still manage to attract loads of admirers to this day. It is important not to overlook that fact because those games are an integral part of the franchise’s overall success: If you put out a quality product for multiple years, you generate a loyal fan base. In other words, those players that get hooked on the PS2 and PSP versions will inevitably get the itch to play the "best" version of the game on the PS3.

So enter 2007, when the series made the leap to the PS3. This was the pivotal point when things really took off for the series. With the addition of truly realistic graphics, retention of the solid-as-a-rock gameplay, and a load of other fantastic and innovative features, The Show on the PS3 instantly became a game of real significance, and it instantly became a benchmark for sports gaming. Well, that all sounds pretty awesome, right?

Great game, I would sure love to play it. But to enjoy any of it, of course I would need a PS3 first.

So really, is MLB 09: The Show worth buying a PS3 for?

What’s Past Is Past

In a way, The Show is really the last of a dying breed. Real exclusivity has become somewhat of a rarity these days. Many third-party titles, including some former rock-solid exclusives like Final Fantasy, have become available on a multitude of platforms these days.

Even so, looking back at gaming history as a whole, when have sports games ever been a real killer app on par with the likes of Zelda, MGS or Halo? Looking back on it, Nintendo’s first-party sports offerings, which have usually been pretty Mario-centric, have been mostly good quality titles, but they have hardly met the hardcore sim standards that many seek.

On the other hand, Microsoft’s games on the Xbox were perfectly suited for the hardcore crowd, but I do not believe many people solely bought an Xbox just for Links, NBA Inside Drive, Top Spin, NFL Fever or NHL Rivals -- yet I admit that I bought my old Xbox used just to play Inside Drive 2003. And before The Show arrived, Sony’s mostly 989-developed offerings (NFL GameDay and NBA Shootout) were average to mediocre at best, hardly system sellers.

I suppose the 2K games on the Dreamcast were nice exclusives as NFL/NBA 2K were such a step above what else was available at the time. But on the other hand, the Dreamcast's total lack of EA games was seen as a boon for the Playstation and has been pointed to as one of the causes for the premature death of Sega’s last console.

Of course through the course of all this, I have been skipping over the best-selling sports app of all in Madden. It obviously has got the exclusivity portion figured out -- in a different sense of course -- and the series has been a quality product at times I suppose.

But Madden is on a different plane of existence than The Show. I mean, Madden is available on every platform imaginable and it is really the only football game in town at the moment. But even then, I still do not imagine that many gamers have bought their current-gen console of choice just to sample the latest flavor of Madden.

At the very least, Madden is really not comparable to what is going on with The Show right now. And with The Show in such a unique position at the moment, there is really only one last question left to ask.

Is It Worth It?

Kratos? Snake? Sackboy? Turismo? Blu-ray? 100-plus gigs of hard drive space? Well, I mean no offense, but like Shania Twain once sang, "that don't impress me much." Plus, as someone who already owns a 360 and Wii, it makes it an even tougher decision.

But, man, watching those gameplay videos makes me want to still run out and pick up the game. The Show is asking me to dig in a bit deeper so I can digitally dig into the box with Braun, Hanley or J-Ham. It is looking to me to just pitch in a few crisp hundreds so I can throw that 100-plus mph fastball with Zumaya.

There is no doubt that it is a difficult choice to make, but personally, I admit that if my laptop had not died on me recently, I would have made the leap. But alas, I suppose it just was not meant to be, at least not this year anyway.

And in the end, I suppose it will be a personal choice everyone has to make. But the fact that many people are even considering a sports game as a system seller during these hard times simply speaks volumes about The Show's quality.

So, sure, it is no Halo or Zelda, and Mark Teixeira or Miguel Cabrera may not be any real competition for Marcus Fenix or Niko Bellic. In the end, though, MLB 09: The Show has shown me that in its own unique way, it is indeed a killer app.