Winning Eleven product manager: “We support all next-gen consoles”

 

Konami‘s Winning Eleven (Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS) series has made football lovers believe that there is a good football game out there that they could enjoy playing hours with. Every release is met with excitement and enthusiasm from football/gaming aficionados. Now, the game’s associate product manager, Colin Ferris, chatted with 1UP about what’s next for the series, what’s missing from it, and what makes it kickass.

He mentions that one thing that he is proud of is their accomplishments on the Xbox 360 version. He shares that:

In fact, all the screens and videos we have used for marketing the 360 version have been created using the in-game engine. There’s no need to touch up the video when it looks this good….We truly did build the 360 version from the ground up. I’ll repeat: this is not a port of the PS2 game. Besides amazing graphics, the next generation of consoles allows us to get more realistic in terms of physics and gameplay. In order to take full advantage of new features in coming versions for next generation, the development team felt the need to start over and not burden themselves with code designed for the last generation

Now, the inevitable question – what is Konami’s plans for the PS3? He divulges that “WE: PES 2007 will not be released on the PS3, but Konami does support all the next generation consoles. You’ll have to wait and see for future announcements.”

Ferris also shared that they have worked very hard on including the licenses for the teams that they know that their fan-base would want. Unlike FIFA, Winning Eleven Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 included all of the World Cup teams (FIFA excluded eight teams). He was also questioned about the lack of the USA National team license for a US release, which he answered by saying:

As with all sports games, licensing is always difficult. In the case of soccer, you have the leagues, the teams, and the team’s sponsors all to deal with. Do we get everything we want? Absolutely not, otherwise every single team in the world would be in the game. However, we are very focused on increasing the presence of North American teams in the game. Personally, the addition of Argentina in WE: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 is one of my favorite new teams to play with.

You could check out the word-per-word account of the interview by clicking on our read link below.

 

Konami‘s Winning Eleven (Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS) series has made football lovers believe that there is a good football game out there that they could enjoy playing hours with. Every release is met with excitement and enthusiasm from football/gaming aficionados. Now, the game’s associate product manager, Colin Ferris, chatted with 1UP about what’s next for the series, what’s missing from it, and what makes it kickass.

He mentions that one thing that he is proud of is their accomplishments on the Xbox 360 version. He shares that:

In fact, all the screens and videos we have used for marketing the 360 version have been created using the in-game engine. There’s no need to touch up the video when it looks this good….We truly did build the 360 version from the ground up. I’ll repeat: this is not a port of the PS2 game. Besides amazing graphics, the next generation of consoles allows us to get more realistic in terms of physics and gameplay. In order to take full advantage of new features in coming versions for next generation, the development team felt the need to start over and not burden themselves with code designed for the last generation

Now, the inevitable question – what is Konami’s plans for the PS3? He divulges that “WE: PES 2007 will not be released on the PS3, but Konami does support all the next generation consoles. You’ll have to wait and see for future announcements.”

Ferris also shared that they have worked very hard on including the licenses for the teams that they know that their fan-base would want. Unlike FIFA, Winning Eleven Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 included all of the World Cup teams (FIFA excluded eight teams). He was also questioned about the lack of the USA National team license for a US release, which he answered by saying:

As with all sports games, licensing is always difficult. In the case of soccer, you have the leagues, the teams, and the team’s sponsors all to deal with. Do we get everything we want? Absolutely not, otherwise every single team in the world would be in the game. However, we are very focused on increasing the presence of North American teams in the game. Personally, the addition of Argentina in WE: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 is one of my favorite new teams to play with.

You could check out the word-per-word account of the interview by clicking on our read link below.