Konamai's "Pro Evolution" soccer series used to be the dominant footy game. Then EA’s "Fifa" series found its stride and began to take over the market.
While there have been companies like Konami trying to get a fair bite out of a market it used to own, EA’s dominance is the market reality. These are tough times for Konami.
However, that doesn’t mean Konami has given up. Konami is finally putting “Pro Evolution Soccer 2013” on Steam and Xbox Games on Demand long after it came out for other systems. The game even came out last year for old systems like the PSP and PlayStation 2, for goodness sake.
At least the digital copy of the game sports a slightly lower price tag, although it is to be noted that the game will demand about 5.69 GB space of the Xbox 360 hard disk.
The development team says it went back to the roots of the game, by working directly with fans of the franchise to deliver a final game that would give total freedom of control back to the players.
This full control, coupled with enhanced artificial intelligence and life-like player animations actually made “PES 2013” the most realistic soccer game on the market. However, for most soccer fans licensing is a must and EA has all the rights. "Pro Evolution" sports a few real life teams such as Manchester United, but most have names somewhat close to their real life counterparts.
On the positive side, only Konami has the right to feature the UEFA Champions League in its game.