Konami ups its soccer game

Any gamer worth his money will know what Fifa and PES are. Now, while EA has been busy showing off Fifa 15’s little new tweaks and additions, Konami has finally joined the race with the latest edition of Pro Evolution soccer. James Cox, the studio head of Konami’s new European studio, spoke about the game’s new details, the most important of which is the introduction of microtransactions.

He went on to explain, “If you don’t have a lot of time, then with microtransactions you can go buy a lot of players that you want. But you can also earn game points in the mode and other parts of PES as well. We’re trying to link things together so you can progress and build your team. The idea is that we’re trying to just give the players the choice of what they want to do. Some people have more time, some people have more money. Some people have a bit of each! Either way, you’ll have the choice.”

From what it looks like Konami is looking for ways to match EA’s post sale income via FUT by introducing microtransactions to their popular Master League Mode. However, it doesn’t seem like a blatant pay wall as there will be an integrated game point earning via regular gameplay. The announcement has received a mixed response to say the least.

However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sure, a lot depends on how well it’s implemented and how well the game point earning is balanced, but it does give players the option of playing with or without paying extra money. For those who don’t have much time and still want to keep up, it provides a quick fix by spending just a little money.

After last year’s disastrous PES launch which saw players stuck without online play for almost six weeks, Konami will be hoping for a smoother launch in order to justify adding in game microtransactions.