Interview: Pro Evolution Soccer 6

Terwijl we de liefhebbers van groepsdouches en strakke shortjes een tijdje terug nog verwenden met een tof hands-onverslag van zowel FIFA 07 als Pro Evolution Soccer 6, heeft het Xbox Community Network niet stilgezeten. Zij trokken met vier voorgelegde vragen per hippe Xboxsite (die overigens alleen in X-Powers geval allemaal terug te vinden zijn in het onderstaande eindproduct), naar Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka, het meesterbrein achter het Mekka der voetbalgames, die op zijn beurt counterde met interessant leesmateriaal.

How do you see the future of PES games online/on Xbox Live? What do you want to achieve online, do you have specific goals or dreams for future games?

It is obvious and I think that it is natural that all modes support multi players. Others, I cannot reveal yet, but we do have many plans at the moment.

Your great rival FIFA has just announced a new animation and graphics system. Do you think that any difference in graphics between FIFA and PES6 will affect the popularity of PES6 amongst gamers?

I cannot deny the fact the FIFA has brilliant graphics. But our strongest point in our PES is the gameplay. I am proud of this point.

Europe is a big market for football/soccer games. Have you localised the version of the game for this continent where everything is more relevant to the European audience (players, stadiums, voices, climate, types of game...)?

We have tweaked and changed the default of the difficulty level. But that's about all. The reason is that I believe how football fans love and feel about real football is same everywhere in the world. Of course, for the we have made minor changes, according to the voices of European users.

How about the much talked about possibility of a 8 vs 8 mode? If it is not in PES6, will there ever be such a mode?

Well, currently, this is impossible. But, soon, I think our team is capable to make this happen.

What is the best new feature in PES6 that, in your opinion, will surprise us all?

When you play, you will discover new kind of moves. New kicks, new dribbling motions, and these will make the play feel much different and surprise the players.

Is it possible to play a whole league online?

No, regret to say. But we want to make this happen as soon as possible.

PES 5 had a slower pace than the previous games and made it possible for a player to make several small fouls. This way, one could disrupt the gameplan or a fluent attack of his opponent, which frustrated some people, but others thought it was more realistic. Why did you change this again in PES 6, which seems to be faster paced and more fluent again, and thus perhaps less realistic?

I think that PES5 was not bad, but for PES6, we made it this way, because we thought that this was closer to the real thing. Also, we need to consider about a good pace of speed as a game too.

In the previous games, the lack of convincing crowd reactions made it for a lot of fans more difficult to get really drawn into a game and its atmosphere. Is this something you worked on in the next- gen version? E.g. will we be hearing something resembling the audio features of EA's FIFA titles with booming cheers when a goal is scored?

Well, this time, we really made use of the 5.1 channel stereo. You can feel the atmosphere much better now. This was really important factor in the development this time, so I would like to experiment further.

Are you a fan of a certain soccer team and/or is there a specific player you admire in real life?