inning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 (or PES 6 in Europe) is one of the biggest games shown here at the 2006 Games Convention for Europeans in attendance. During the show I had the opportunity to interview Senior Producer Shingo “Seabass” Takatsuka and Aki Saito Konami Europe’s Senior Manager with a close personal friend of mine Thomas Puha from Finland’s premier video game magazine, Pelaaja.  This extensive North American/European double team interview covers everything from the newly debuted Xbox 360 version, and current PS2, PSP titles.  Plus we get details about the upcoming PlayStation 3 version, and the potential for a Wii release (we’re betting on it).

To fully understand this interview, I need to make a few things clear.  Winning Eleven is released at different times across the globe with different names for the game.  Each year Winning Eleven is released first in Japan – usually in the spring.  Then in Europe Pro Evolution Soccer or PES is released in the Fall (which is funny they call it soccer in Europe and not football, but then again PEF looks kind of stupid). In North America the Winning Eleven games come out in Spring, nearly a year after the Japanese version.  In Japan Winning Eleven 10 was already released, Pro Evolution Soccer 6 is the next title in Europe releasing this Fall, and in North America the newly named Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 is set to be released in Q1 of 2007.  After the Japanese version is released Konami improves on game elements before the European version, and the same is done before Winning Eleven is released in the states.  So basically, in this interview, a number of different versions are being mentioned.  We hope this clears things up before you begin read