Ancora Seabass "userei il motore di Fifa in PES"

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It's been all go even this early in the season, Chelsea and Liverpool sitting pretty at the top of the table, Hull City disproving the old adage about promoted teams heading straight back down and best gag so far, the fake train announcement recording a 'points failure in the Tottenham area'.

But a new season also always brings a new round of gaming challenges as the annual FIFA versus Pro Evolution battle kicks-off. With FIFA already out and winning plaudits for its playability and polish, PES 2009 has certainly got to raise its game in this most ultra competitive of premier gaming leagues.


So it was with bated breath we recently journeyed to the PES European Championships in Rome to catch up with Pro Evolution Soccer 2009's creator Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka to learn the latest about this year's game.

In a round table interview, we heard his thoughts on the latest version of Pro Evo and covered topics as diverse as the online mode, improvements to the PS3 version, whether he'd take FIFA's game engine if it was offered to him and even how this year's Euro 2008 tournament affected PES development. Here's what we discovered...


We're at the PES European finals with some of the greatest PES players in the game. Do you take a lot of pride watching those games? Does it spoil your enjoyment when players spot flaws or bugs in the AI and exploit them?

Seabass: Well both actually because when I'm creating the game, I have to say that over the years when I see people play in this tournament the more I get ideas about how I can make it better again every year. Changing the program, things like that, that really helps me. With the game when people try to beat the AI, that's no problem, because that's all part of the game. So it doesn't really frustrate me.

I do actually have other feelings when I see people try to beat the AI, I am already making plans on how to beat them back! There's a lot of enjoyment for me when I think about that. But most of all you know, attending this event is really exciting because I can see the enjoyment people have and it gives me power when I go back to Japan to create the next one. Overall I have a very good feeling about the game and the tournament.

This is the second year of PES on PS3. What kind of advantages has that extra year given you to harness the power of the platform?

Seabass: Yes, this is our second or additional year on PS3 and it was very precious to us. Speaking quite frankly PES 2009 to me, when I finished it, I felt I was pretty well satisfied with it.


PES 2008 was how we started on next generation and it takes time on next gen consoles to boost performance on the machine, to optimise it to what we ideally really wanted to do. It was the same on PS2.

So I can say in future years that I think performance will go higher but you'll see right away there is an improvement this year.

Many players use the Wide Angle to play PES, but end up not seeing the great new stadiums you've designed. Do you think we'll ever see a new camera angle which combines ease of play with real cinematic feel?

Seabass: Yes, we know for a fact that many players use the wide angle and camera angles are always really important. Looking at the TV for example, football matches on that, we understand it's a kind of wide view which is the norm, a little bit like this, but a little bit more slanted, that's the normal TV view. We did try to pursue this for a little while but we ended up realising we'd have to sacrifice some of the game's control. So for the game, wide is pretty much the default view for a lot of players.

I do receive complaints from the people who create stadiums in my team that no matter how much they work hardly anyone ever gets to see their finished work. But all in all even these creators understand that if the players are happy, then fine, it doesn't really matter what the camera angle is.

Now as I said at the beginning camera angles are really really important, so we haven't laid back and thought Wide is the best camera angle ever, that's it. We want to continue to experiment to find the best balance between gameplay and camera angle possible.

If there was a criticism of PES 2008 from the players, it was probably to do with the Online modes. How have you attempted to address those criticisms this year and make it smoother and more playable?


Seabass: Oh yes, we do know and people have asked us 'What are you planning on doing about this?' I do acknowledge that last year we placed such emphasis on the controls that the online side was sacrificed. For instance if you as a player didn't have a very good connection, that could really seriously affect your gameplay and it could turn out to be very horrible indeed.

This year we looked at this [online] as a top priority and we tested half way around the world, so that even for people who don't have good connections we wanted to pursue how we can make the game still playable. At the same time we didn't want to lose the controllability that PES has, so taking on this problem really did take a long time and we found a solution as well as taking on more players, four this time, for multiplay online.

And we're not going to stop, until we're fully satisfied with this online version of PES 2009, we want to go even further. So I promise you it will still continue to change and improve further as we go along.

We recently read a statement from Itagaki-san which said graphics aren't perhaps Japanese developers first priority. Do you agree with Itagaki-san?

Seabass: I agree partly with what Mister Itagaki said, but I think that's not all that's different about Japanese developers compared to say Western developers if that's what your question is about. What I feel mostly is how effective or how ineffective Japanese developers are, how developers work.

Right now next to us we have the Kojima Productions team but quite frankly we don't share game influence or information - sure the game's totally different - but we don't share game engines or anything like that. In my imagination at least I think EA share game engines amongst their Madden games and other sports games and things like that.

This is not because we're fighting against each other but it's a little bit of a sad Japanese mentality where we do not share, we pursue our objectives more or less on our own. I think this is the factor which makes Japanese developers a little bit behind western developers, because we don't share, well maybe that's the wrong key word - it's more about being effective in terms of making the game as a product.

So it's a bit about making something unique?

Seabass: Well yes kind of like that, we pursue something unique and also we don't kind of kick back. If we were to drop some performance for example and save it for next year or two years after. Maybe some companies do think in that way, to get the game out, but we don't actually, we put in everything that's possible until the very last minute and don't think about or save anything until next year or the year after. That's another factor.

You must be tired of people claiming PES has copied its Become a Legend mode from FIFA. But why did it take so long for Winning XI's Fantasista mode to reach Europe? What was the rationale behind that?

Seabass: Well yes, that's one of my biggest regrets that we didn't get the Fantasista mode into PES and introduced to Europe. However you do encourage me and it's good that people like yourselves know that our Fantasista mode was earlier than FIFA's Become a Legend.

On a yearly development schedule every year brings its own challenges, what have been the biggest challenges about developing PES 2009?

Seabass: There were basically two main challenges when we started work on PES 2009, the first was introducing new modes, like we were finally able to introduce the Become a Legend mode, that was one of our biggest goals and targets. At the same time we really wanted to make the AI real next-gen AI which we've accomplished this time quite well. So those were the two themes and targets that we had at the beginning of the project.

If EA said 'we're going to dump FIFA and you can have our engine - would you take it? Or would you say 'no I'll continue to do my own stuff'.

Seabass: Well I would think about it really seriously because I still believe that EA's engine and animation is really superb, very good. The modelling of the characters is perhaps not really to my taste actually, so I might not take that part, but seriously I think their engine and their motion style is really great.

How satisfying is it to get the license for the Champions League and big clubs like Liverpool, Man Utd and Barcelona? How much does that bring to the realism and atmosphere of the game? Will it influence people who like FIFA's realism to buy PES?

Seabass: Yes I do think it will influence people to an extent. I was really very happy when we acquired the Champions League license but frankly I originally thought we would never be able to acquire this license when we tried to go after it. As I said I'm very happy but at the same time I also have to say I believe we're still not completely there with all the licenses and leagues we need, for example with your countries' teams. When the day comes when we have the Premiership and Bundisliga I think I'll be even more happy then.

We had a great Euro 2008 tournament this summer, well England didn't but it was a great tournament to watch. Did any of the players or teams influence PES 2009 - what kind of input did it have into the game?

Seabass: Unfortunately during Euro 2008 it was a real crunch time for PES and I didn't have a chance to see as much as I did in previous years. Also it was quite surprising that Spain won the competition which I wouldn't have predicted at all. Afterwards when I managed to catch up with some matches there were some players that were really key and of course that influenced me and it probably will as long as the series goes on.

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Manuale di PES 2016 (PS4) e PES Data BaseWE 4ever ...Intendido!!

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l'anno passato dichiaro' poco prima dell'uscita del gioco nei negozi che il lavoro fatto per PES2008 non era quello che lui avrebbe voluto, quest'anno a 3 giorni dall'uscita stessa cosa

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Speaking quite frankly PES 2009 to me, when I finished it, I felt I was pretty well satisfied with it.

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non vi sorge il dubbio che la Konami voglia che il gioco rimanga con quella meccanica, perche' c'e' gente che nonostante il gioco sia niente di eccezionale e con meccaniche peggiori della PS2 ancora lo compra solo per il nome PES, facendo fare alla Konami buoni numeri di fatturazione, quindi la Konami non ha nessun interesse di cambiare rotta

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mentre Seabass si vorrebbe fare un gioco nuovo di qualita' ma non gli e' permesso. In EA si sa' le cose sono differenti gli investimenti saranno come minimo 10 volte superiori..

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Manuale di PES 2016 (PS4) e PES Data BaseWE 4ever ...Intendido!!