If you're a big-time footie fan, chances are you'll remember the days when EA's FIFA wasn't the powerhouse it is now. Nope, in the older generation of gaming, it was Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) that ruled the roost.
Now, in the present day, FIFA has surpassed PES both commercially and critically — but how did EA manage to do it? Well, according to Konami's Jon Murphy, EA managed to do it by "copying" PES.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Murphy had this to say on FIFA copying PES.
If you look further back into the past of PES you can see they've obviously gone from a game that was totally different from PES to one that started copying PES to one that started taking areas PES did well further into the product they have now.
There's been a whole series of – and I'm sure they won't disagree with this – taking PES apart and rebuilding theirs in direct comparison. And you see other things, such as the replication of players, which we're now bouncing back at with our Player ID. And there are other recent examples as well where it seems as soon as we're announcing one thing they're announcing the same thing as well. I'm not sure how that happens by accident so often.
Not only that, but when Murphy was asked frankly if he thought EA was copying the PES franchise, he answered with a straightforward and emphatic "yes." And added that EA has a "long history" of copying PES.
I wouldn't say they are actively doing that right now. I'm saying they have a long history of copying PES to get to where they want to be. People shouldn't forget that's how they got where they are. You can give them loads of credit for how they've got to where they got to now, and you can see it as a totally valuable product in its own right that does have ideas we can all learn from, but we shouldn't forget that PES innovated all of this stuff and they did copy it.
Now them's some fighting words! FIFA and PES will square off in the virtual soccer field later this year when both game's release dates are due.
Be sure to give the whole interview a read, as there's more where this came from.
If you're a soccer fan, do you agree with Murphy's statements or is it the case of PES being bitter that they've been left in the dust in comparison to FIFA's sales?
