Midway's upcoming MLB SlugFest Loaded will be the first Xbox game to support Microsoft's new Xbox Live 3.0 features, Midway producer Adam Boyes confirmed yesterday. Loaded, which arrives for both PlayStation 2 and Xbox this June, will offer user-created online tournaments on Xbox Live.

That's just one of many features included in the new version of Live, code-named Tsunami when Microsoft teased its debut earlier this year, but Loaded is the first game to offer it. Players will be able to create custom tournaments for four, eight, or 16 players, leaving them open to the public or keeping them private for a particular group, and inviting other users on their friends list to join the competition.

"It doesn't work so it's one big elimination thing," Boyes explained. "It actually works so it's round robin, and in the end it shows you the rankings of all the players, and the top guys win and so on." As for the prospect of Midway-organized tournaments with prizes for the winners, Boyes said that's in the hand of Midway's marketing and PR teams for now. "I know we've done it in the past with other sports games," he said, "so I'm pretty sure they're working on that."

PS2 users won't be able to compete in their own custom tournaments, but Midway will run the game's online mode as one massive public tournament, with stat-keeping and ladders to recognize the best players.

Other games supporting Live 3.0 later this year will include built-in clan support, archives for collecting and organizing user-created content, and MSN Messenger integration to let players communicate with each other between Xbox Live games and Messenger-equipped PCs.

As for the future of the SlugFest, Boyes mentioned many possibilities down the line. "Right now, we're not sure [if SlugFest will be a yearly series]," he said. "It all depends where the market goes, where the market moves, where the baseball market goes as well. But we've got a lot of stuff in the cooker for the next SlugFest. We'd like to take the Baseball Mogul [engine] and bring it completely online, so you can bring complete leagues, franchises and manage the whole thing online, schedule exactly how many teams and games you want to play throughout the season and manage all that."

Midway's blend of arcade action and hardcore simulation for Loaded is a rather incongruous fit, but early reports have been positive. Look forward to more details when we check out the finished version early this summer.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in 1UP.