Interviews// PES 2013: 'Preparing for the Next Generation'

You’d be somewhat forgiven for feeling a little bit sorry for Konami and the Pro Evolution Soccer series in the last five years. The HD generation has not been kind to what was once the king of football games, with EA’s rival FIFA franchise now dominating the living rooms of footy fans. But, the PES Productions team is not giving up without a fight.

Enter PES 2013, a game that could be called a revamp on multiple levels. Firstly, the fact that the studio has pretty much started most of the AI and feature sets from scratch, with goalkeepers getting the most attention based on user feedback. The inclusion of First-Touch Control and Manual Passing and Shooting also aims to bring players closer to the action.

On paper, it sounds like it is competing on a much more level pegging with FIFA than ever before - we know that FIFA 13 also includes First-Touch Controls and full dribbling control. When playing however, it feels like a different beast to both EA’s game and past PES titles. Particularly with the assists off, you can see how the AI reacts to your actions and tries to move around the pitch more intelligently.

Above all else though, you feel closer to the player you are currently controlling. Holding down the Right Trigger will let you dribble the ball with your sole, while flicking the Right Stick slightly makes you do cheeky dances around opponents trying to challenge you. Being able to manually control a player’s First-Touch response by hitting RB is a bit more immersive, too.

The game has been in development for three years - and the PES Productions team consists of a lot of fresh blood, which is another kind of revamp entirely. Shingo ‘Seabass’ Takatsuka has departed from the core console team, and instead a new team has come to help kick some life into the franchise. I spoke with European team leader Jon Murphy and marketing producer Manorito Hosoda to learn more about these changes and its new philosophy.


SPOnG: Lot of innovations and reiterations of features in PES 2013. Are you basically considering this as a reboot of the franchise?

Manorito Hosoda: As hardcore specs improved, we are getting higher demand from users [to add new innovations], so we have challenged ourselves to implement new features which may rebuild the series. Yes, we hope this will be the first step of a new era of this franchise.


SPOnG: From all the feedback you got from Pro Evolution Soccer 2012, was there any particular aspect of the game that you felt the community really wanted you to change?

Manorito Hosoda: We have prioritised our development to the improvement of the goalkeepers, and based on the user feedback we have also implemented full manual passing and full manual shooting.


SPOnG: Pro Evolution Soccer has been the premier football game of choice for many years. But recently, Electronic Arts’ FIFA series has become more prominent. Do you feel that FIFA has overtaken PES, and is your aim to claim any lost title back that you feel you may have lost?

Manorito Hosoda: I think FIFA and PES are moving in different directions. Different philosophies. We would like to go deeper than we have before by reproducing every single element of a player’s personality, such as through Player ID and Player First Touches. Ultimately we would like to reproduce the signature movements of 20,000 professional players in the game.


SPOnG: So, in what way are FIFA and PES moving in different directions? FIFA’s aim is to move closer to simulation - do you mean to say you’re taking more of an arcade approach?

Jon Murphy: No. I think what PES is striving for, is more direct control. And I don’t think it comes down to simulation or arcade - I don’t think either of us are going arcade. The difference, for example, between the way that our First Touch Control is used and theirs, is that you have the ability to directly control that. Whereas in FIFA it’s dependant on the ability of the person you’re controlling.

So the difference in roots, I think, is that our game is coming down to the skills of the user, whereas I think FIFA is down to the skills of the individual teams, or players within those teams. The idea with us, really, is that the user is the one in control. A great PES player should obviously be able to beat a not-so-great player at the game.


SPOnG: A lot of sports games are adding Kinect support. Are there any plans to bring Kinect to PES, or is that something you’re looking into?

Manorito Hosoda: FIFA has implemented the option to give instructions to the players by voice of Kinect. But we think that is not so intuitive as a means of control. But, Kinect features may be used in PES for substituting players. It is just a fresh idea, but it can be used for that purpose.

Jon Murphy: It could be.

Manorito Hosoda: Yeah, it could be.


SPOnG: What was the decision-making process to decide which players to map directly into the game, and how did you approach that? Did you bring certain football stars into a studio to record their movement, or did you rely on footage of their performances in past matches?

Manorito Hosoda: We looked into the world’s best players, as well as those football stars that were nominated as FIFA’s best player for the last three years. We also picked some stars from each country. To reproduce the signatures of the players, we did a lot of motion captures by ourselves. We also had to look back at videos and YouTube to make adjustments and improvements to the motion caption data.


SPOnG: In the game, does that also affect how those players behave amongst their teammates? Players like Ronaldo are notoriously selfish players - more likely to take shots and run with the ball. Is that carried over to the AI as well?

Manorito Hosoda: To be honest, there is a hidden parameter for the players in the game. You cannot see it on the screen, but the parameter essentially determines how selfish the player is and how well the player understands the team’s strategies [laughs].


SPOnG: I find it fascinating to see the new improvements to the online side of the game. There’s this idea that Japanese gamers are a little bit shy when it comes to playing online. I don’t know if you could tell me if that is true or not, but if it is I’m curious as to how you approach development with that in mind.

Manorito Hosoda: Yes, Japanese users are very shy, and Japan is a country in the Far East, so we had to look at the European users as the main target, so we always look at the European users’ feedback to make improvements to the online aspect.


SPOnG: A lot of balancing and fine-tuning goes into every PES game. How long do you spend polishing each game before it comes out or until you’re happy to release it?

Manorito Hosoda: Ideally, we would like to have half a year to make improvements to the gameplay balance. This year, fortunately, we had a much longer time to tweak the game.


SPOnG: You’ve said this is a fresh start for PES and a new beginning - was it important to you to reboot the franchise like this now, when we’re on the cusp of a new generation of home consoles?

Manorito Hosoda: We would like to make a good start to prepare for the transition to next generation consoles. We don’t want to repeat the same fate in the transition from PS2 to PS3. So three years ago, we started this change in our philosophy and that has reflected in how we have developed this game.


SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time.

Manorito Hosoda: Thank you very much.

Jon Murphy: Thank you.