No more than two hours later Konami of Europe followed suit, confirming that a PAL edition of PES (based on the forthcoming Pro Evolution Soccer 5) would be winging its way to Sony's handheld in the Autumn. Better still, they chose to furnish us with the very first screenshots of the game in action, as well as a few details of what we can expect from the gameplay.
According to Konami, the PAL PSP PES (try repeating that quickly ten times over) will be 'almost identical [to PES5 on consoles and PC] in terms of available international sides, with 57 national sides lining up alongside 136 club teams'.
We'll have a selection of six leagues to choose from (Konami wouldn't expand on which of these would carry official licences), cup competitions, and a running total of things like "goals for", "against", "wins" and similar statistics. The usual full Match, League and Training modes will be there as well, and there'll be an Editing facility for the anally retentive amongst us. And of course, we'll be able to wirelessly hook up with other PSPs for multiplayer matches, though we've not been told how many players can play in these.
Neatly, there'll also be a facility that allows players to link-up with the PS2 version of PES5 to exchange data, including teams created on PS2. Players will then be able to use these teams against other PSP users and swap teams with them too.
Series producer Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka has also been discussing how the control system is being revamped to suit the PSP's fewer buttons: apparently, players will perform a side dribble using only the D-pad (since there's no R2 button on the handheld) and the 'cancel action' uh, action (executed in the PS2 version by pressing R1 and R2 together) has been completely removed.
Anyway, more as it comes; though it's safe to say that Autumn can't come quick enough.
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