Konami confirms Winning Eleven 8
Japan should see the next instalment in KCET's fabulous footy series this August.
The inevitable Winning Eleven 8 for PS2 has appeared on Konami's Japanese release list for the first time according to reports, and should be out in Japan this August 5th. Details are fairly scant, but The Magic Box reports that the Master League will have 138 playable teams this time out, and will benefit from a new 'growth and decline' system so that no one single team can always be the strongest.
Obviously the game will also undergo big changes on the field, although we don't know what those are at this point. Expect to hear more about them in the future, although possibly not at E3, given that the Western (particularly European) titles are never straight ports, but rather build on the codebase from the Japanese version and incorporate more up to date player and team databases and features.
Konami Europe is expected to release Pro Evolution Soccer 4 on PS2 in late autumn, although we're still awaiting an announcement, and recently declared its intention to deliver a version of Pro Evolution Soccer on Xbox this year to boot. Whether Live play will factor into that remains to be seen, but Konami has dabbled in Microsoft's online gaming service in the past so it seems eminently possible.