Konami rocked the boat last month when it was announced that Pro Evolution Soccer would be wrapping up after 25 years, and in its place would be eFootball - a brand-new soccer experience utilising a free-to-play model.
From a FIFA perspective, EA was asked during yesterday's earnings call about the company's reaction to eFootball, and while it was acknowledged that "competition is always good", CEO Andrew Wilson delivered a confident response:
"With respect to Pro Evolution Soccer [changing] its name to eFootball and going free to play, we've seen this happen before. I would tell you we're very committed to our soccer business."
"We're very committed to our player base. We continue to grow that player base. We've listened to our community over the years, and we've gone out and got much of the license content that underpins an authentic football game exclusively and continue to invest deeply not just in modes of play but in core gameplay to ensure that we're delivering the best possible experience for our global player base."
Wilson went on to explain that EA is "seeing extremely strong demand for the upcoming version of FIFA", set to arrive on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S in the form of FIFA 22 on October 1, highlighted by the addition of all-new 'HyperMotion technology' on next-gen consoles.
eFootball, meanwhile, will begin its rollout in 'Early Autumn', with new features to be added over time, and the general feeling from EA is that while it's something to keep an eye on, FIFA's player base is very much the internal focus.
"So again, competition is always good. We're always very closely cognizant of what competition is doing. But our commitment is to our player base and delivering the most comprehensive, broad-based, authentic football game on the planet. And we believe we have the best team to do that, and we'll look to continue to do that over time."
What are your thoughts on EA's comments about PES and eFootball? Let us know in the comments below.
[source fool.com]
Comments 7
So what they are saying is that people want to play as real world teams in football games rather than the Uranus All Stars or Jupiter Banana Skins. I'd pick the Jupiter Banana Skins over a real world team any day of the week in a game that was free to play. Charge for the licensed skins for people that want that.
Ofcourse they arent going to change anything, why would they when all the drones flock to FIFA and willingly pour money into the game despite it being pretty mediocre on the pitch.....if the gameplay on efootball(Pes) is still superior by a mile then I will be playing efootball for my fix.
"We've listened to our community" ... was he high when he said that?
The reaction should be making FIFA Ultimate Team a F2P mode, but EA won't do that as most of the people that flock to buy the game each year are addicted to that mode and rarely touch the rest of the game.
@Chaudy think he meant to say we've listened to our shareholders who want larger profit margins
@Carck FIFA has always been more popular it doesn't change the fact it's got poor gameplay wrapped up in a nice package....and if people prefer the extra depth FIFA offers over actual gameplay that's upto them
@Carck And PES didn't just stagnate, but FIFA transformed itself with a fresh approach from FIFA 07-09 onwards.
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