The issue of league distribution in FIFA and PES is quite acute. Nobody likes to play football for some kind of conditional London Red, Manchester Blue or Piemonte Calcio. ODDS is looking at how the top leagues are split between Electronic Arts and Konami.
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EA and Konami are constantly trying to squeeze each other’s top teams, knowing full well that without licenses, you cannot reach a large audience. A few years ago, EA seemed to have achieved the impossible, securing the rights to the Champions League and Europa League, and later added the Copa Libertadores. All this dealt an irreparable blow to PES, since the game enjoyed at least some popularity for many years precisely because of the European cups.
Every year more and more people are leaving the PC on the console. Given that the new versions of PS and Xbox will be quite affordable, the migration of gamers will be more active. What is it for? And besides the fact that on the PC “craftsmen” in no time turn London Red into “Arsenal”, thereby solving the problem. But on consoles this is not possible.
The quality of the game, you say? Sounds funny. It was about ten years ago that PES with closed eyes could bypass FIFA in terms of gameplay quality and game physics. Konami’s product is much worse now. And the fact is that if you weigh everything and take into account the progress of technology, it becomes clear that it is not FIFA that has become better, but that PES itself has slipped and turned into a miserable semblance of itself.
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Championships that are licensed in FIFA
The notorious handicap? You just haven’t played Pro Evolution Soccer online. Donut? Packs? Bad drop? All this is also in the Konami title. It’s just that humanity tends to unite against global evil. Well, or schoolchildren have heard a lot of fairy tales about how they used to play in PES in garages converted into gaming clubs.
In fact, during all this time, Konami has managed to oppose EA with only two things. First, PES has won the exclusive rights to Barcelona’s arena, Camp Nou. Second, of course, Juventus. Agree, it’s funny to watch Piemonte Calcio in Serie A.
Apart from Juventus, Konami has contracts with Bayern, Barcelona, Manchester United, Arsenal, Milan and Inter among the top European teams.
FIFA has a much more impressive list: Real Madrid, Liverpool, Manchester City, PSG and Chelsea. It seems smaller only at first glance. Instead of individual clubs, EA buys out the rights to the whole league – the Premier League, Primera, Eredivisie, MLS, Bundesliga. Thus, the company forces the competitor to spend more money on individual clubs. Konami has only two teams out of the entire Premier League. And I won’t be surprised if Juventus returns to FIFA in the same way. This will be a devastating blow to Konami.
In this situation, a Japanese developer can endlessly delight faces with graphics, threaten to switch to Unreal Engine 5 and try to somehow annoy the opponent. It is possible that in 2023 PES will again be better than FIFA in gameplay. But for the general public, it costs nothing, because no one wants to play for London Red and Manchester Blue.
