Seabass: PES 2009 forced back to drawing board

ThomasGOAL

ThomasGOAL

Retired Footballer
15 March 2003
France
Seabass: PES 2009 forced back to drawing board
Criticism of PES 2008 on PS3 responsible


Pro Evolution Soccer creator Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka has revealed that he's gone back to the drawing board for PES 2009 following the criticism of the 2008 edition on PS3.

"It's so far from what we wanted", Seabass said of PES 2008 on PS3 in an interview with PSM3 magazine in its latest issue (#95), echoing words said to CVG in October.

"In fact," he continued, "we thought about delaying it but different factors meant we had to [release it]".

"As a developer, we've worked the same way since the days of the SNES. We're simply not set up for multi-platform development".

But, asking us to look at the way the PS2 version panned out from the first to the last game, Seabass reassured that the development team is well on course to follow suit on PS3.

However, the criticisms levelled at PES 2008 on PS3 have forced the series' creator back a peg or two with PES 2009.

"PES 2009 is in development, but after hearing the criticism, we'll be taking it back to the drawing board. It might not be next year, but it will be soon", Seabass explained.
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http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=176240
 
Ha ha ha very funy, this big A$$HOLE! he knows that the Game is shit but he releases it??? delay this crap, say sorry to the fans and its OK! But this way has killed the series! Other Games are working very well on Multiplattforms, and this PES isnt a graphical highlight! This is Bull$hit! i dont believe this!
 
To be fair, I don't think Seabass himself released the game. He develops it but it's his publisher, Konami, that would have forced a release date upon him.

I'll be interested to see what comes of this. When he says of PES2009 "it might not be next year", I wonder if that means he has come to an agreement with Konami that they release it only when he's happy with it, not because October has arrived.

Hopefully "back to the drawing board" means a completely new engine, from the bottom up, starting with the control system. Without that, his words are worthless.
 
winston said:
When he says of PES2009 "it might not be next year", I wonder if that means he has come to an agreement with Konami that they release it only when he's happy with it, not because October has arrived.
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The way I took it was him saying that the game might not be where he wants it to be at next year (i.e. perfect), but it will be soon. I think this, because he's been saying the same thing ever year, "just wait til next year...". It gets a little bit old.
 
So if Seabass knew that the game wasn't fully up to par then why didn't he just push back the release date like every other normal developer does when they need more time to complete a game?
 
Why are you guys blaming on seabass ? He said differents facts made them release it anyway. Maybe some sony+Konami pressure ? You know businness before christmas, the ps3 that never sells for a lot of number but now is selling good, there's a lot of fact going on, I dont think we can blame him like that. Also people were already crying to try the demo what would you think you would have said if they have told you that the game wont be out before march 2008 ?
 
This is utter bullshite - he's already left himself an out by saying that probably the 2009 version won't be up to snuff either?! How about instead promising all of those who threw away money on this year's crap version that he guarantees PES 2009 will be far and away better and then make his staff get off their lazy arses and work like hell to live up to his word! Dammit. :x
 
Look i don't want to start a flaming war (not another one) but i simply do not understand certain people.
Why blame seabass for not delaying the release??? Do you people have the faintest clue how a big company like Konami works???
Seabass has bosses who decide if a relaese will be postponed or not...it is possible was against a release this year, but since PES is a million seller game his bosses want a yearly release (which is short-sighted).
Blame Konami (they should be blamed) but not Seabass himself.

What i don't understand is that with next-gen consoles it's possible to make DLC.
They still can make "patches" to correct mistakes.
What Konami should do next year is not releasing a game until it has the high standard that made us all buy the game year after year. At the beginning of next season they could have DLC with the new team rosters and some extra teams, i would buy that (for a moderate price). And then when the game is ready they should release PES2009 or 2010...
Personally i wouldn't mind if there was no game in 2008...if the next one is the huge step forward.
Now once again about seabass, he is a prisoner of the success formmula that PES has become...it tops the selling charts and his bosses want him to make a best seller every year...and please don't change too much.
If he would start an independent company he could make PES his game again, but you need money to do that...
 
The point is that there should be no reason to delay the release in the first place - the game should be dam good enough and ready to go when it is scheduled and since Seabass is the Producer of the series it is ultimately his responsibility that that happens.
It is ridiculous to let he and Konami off the hook by rationalizing that they should just delay the game if it's not ready - why isn't it ready?! This is what Konami and Seabass DO - this is their job that they are compensated for very, very well (with OUR MONEY)!
Can you imagine if any of us were given a project and a deadline at our place of employment and when time came around we simply said, oh it's not ready yet so I need more time...or even worse if we presented the project and it was as awful as PES2008?! Our arses would be fired and we'd be on the streets!!
Konami is a huge company and Seabass is head producer on their biggest game - they are supposedly professionals at this - make a quality game that gets released on time or get out of the business.
Pretty simple really.
 
PES isn't their biggest game, that's MGS4.
I just read today in a gaming magazine that 200 people are working on MGS4.
Seabass himself has repeatedly told that basically PES is made by the same 10 people who started it all 10 years ago.
Konami is indeed a huge company, that's why Seabass hasn't much influence over the fate of his own game. I've been to Japan, lived there a couple of months. Believe me this is typical for Japanese companies.
It isn't as simple as it looks.
And i will not let Konami off the hook, but i think most people here are far too harsh for Seabass...
 
Rocky29 said:
So if Seabass knew that the game wasn't fully up to par then why didn't he just push back the release date like every other normal developer does when they need more time to complete a game?
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VERY few developers push a games release date out because of logistical issues and the need for financial returns. Sometimes very well managed projects with very large budgets that are development as opposed to schedule led, can some make qualifed delays in releasing products, sometimes not, again it is down to logistics and financials.

Almost no publisher in the world will shelve a game that has been developed on the basis of a lack of quality in the final product- FACT.

The financial returns on a product are crucial to companies, directors, shareholders, owners etc given the budgets involved and the large cost of development.

You might be able to place some of the blame at Seabass's door for the quality of the product, though some of the issues may also be beyond his control. Either you cannot blame him for the release of the game as that will have been a basic and automatic decision by those taken above him at Konami.

This is how the industry works.
 
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gerd said:
PES isn't their biggest game, that's MGS4.
I just read today in a gaming magazine that 200 people are working on MGS4.
Seabass himself has repeatedly told that basically PES is made by the same 10 people who started it all 10 years ago.
Konami is indeed a huge company, that's why Seabass hasn't much influence over the fate of his own game. I've been to Japan, lived there a couple of months. Believe me this is typical for Japanese companies.
It isn't as simple as it looks.
And i will not let Konami off the hook, but i think most people here are far too harsh for Seabass...
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Didn't Seahaze say he had over 100 Staff's?
 
Bottom Line - the business of gaming is the same as the business of football in this regard - Seabass is the 'manager' of the WE/PES 'team', Konami is the 'owner'. When things go wrong with the performance of the 'team' the manager is always going to get the lion's share of the blame whether it's all his fault or not.
 
Bobo21 said:
Bottom Line - the business of gaming is the same as the business of football in this regard - Seabass is the 'manager' of the WE/PES 'team', Konami is the 'owner'. When things go wrong with the performance of the 'team' the manager is always going to get the lion's share of the blame whether it's all his fault or not.
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I used to work in the industry as a computer games designer and producer of football games and did so for many years at leading software houses.

I can tell you for a fact that your analogy is totally inappropriate because the business models, logistics, the respective positions and levels of control are utterly different.

I am not saying any of this to justify anything at Konami or their game, I am just stating how different the reality is in terms of the industry.

If you are looking for a fomrer professionals opinion on this then I have given it, if you want to just have opinions from those that have never worked in this position or the industry then I guess you have those opinions as well.

I'm not going to argue, I just thought some people might want a former professionals opinion on this...I gave it in the last post.
 
Speaking as someone who works as a developer, (although not in games) - You do find sometimes you are forced to release "unfinished" buggy software against your will due to pressure from above. I blame Konami for this more than Seabass, at least he's had the honesty to hold his hands up and say it wasn't good enough.

Konami rushed the game out to meet the usual October deadline whereas Rockstar have been brave enough to punt GTA4 back until it is READY.
 
There were times that they didnt release a game each year,
We didnt got a decent game from them for few years now...
I mean they should be innovative brilliant and magical like they used to be.
give us this every 2 years,it will do.
 
I know it's all been said before but the game stalled along time ago, they hit onto a good thing and just milked it too long. They should have been working on expanding the product as well as doing some development for the next generation game play in the background... instead they looked at other ways of getting more money from the brand, ie the deplorable manager offshoot... Why else would you release a product that was already inferior to several titles already on the market... The seeming desperation to release on all formats come what may is also a bad sign.
 
Bobo21 said:
Bottom Line - the business of gaming is the same as the business of football in this regard - Seabass is the 'manager' of the WE/PES 'team', Konami is the 'owner'. When things go wrong with the performance of the 'team' the manager is always going to get the lion's share of the blame whether it's all his fault or not.
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Your analogy is well wide of the mark. Publishers dictate the release date as it's their money that funds the project. Most developers would want wice as much dev time as they get, but the reality is this is a business and deadlines have to be set and met.

As has been mentioned, the fact that Konami have decided to release one PES per year has been an oversight in retrospect. The team is too small and clearly not up to multi format development. They need more resources before they can be competitive with annual releases.
 
Kenny G said:
Speaking as someone who works as a developer, (although not in games) - You do find sometimes you are forced to release "unfinished" buggy software against your will due to pressure from above. I blame Konami for this more than Seabass, at least he's had the honesty to hold his hands up and say it wasn't good enough.
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Also the end results also stem from the resources Seabass has been provided from above by Konami in terms of designers, programmers, artists and ancillary staff, physical resources in terms equipment, motion capture studies, recording studios, outsourced work etc etc etc. It is dependent upon the policy at Konami in terms of how many platforms these resources are stretched across, the policy set out by Konami in terms of how many products they wish to release over a set period (the development cycle), dependent upon Konami’s scheduling/deadlines and financial obligations etc.

How much control Seabass actually has upon many of the crucial factors involved in development release date and quality are probably only known internally within Konami and by Seabass and his staff.

He unequivocally will NOT have a comparable level of control to that of a football manager.

Nick Cave said:
I know it's all been said before but the game stalled along time ago, they hit onto a good thing and just milked it too long. They should have been working on expanding the product as well as doing some development for the next generation game play in the background... instead they looked at other ways of getting more money from the brand, ie the deplorable manager offshoot... Why else would you release a product that was already inferior to several titles already on the market... The seeming desperation to release on all formats come what may is also a bad sign.
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Over the long term Seabass might have had a part to play in the direction that Konami has taken and have some responsibility over the end results; then again maybe he has not. The key decisions/reasons for the current situation could just as easily be due to the policies/decisions taken from above or from poor/inadequate resources/logistics at Konami.

The only people who know exactly how much control and responsibility Seabass has had are like I have said people within Konami.

The industry and basic position has so many variables and pitfalls it is crazy. I mean there are a million and one ways to fail and controlling anything with the best of situations is fuzzy to say the least.

The bottom line is Konami as a whole ultimately have to carry the can for any inadequacies.


Joystick said:
Your analogy is well wide of the mark. Publishers dictate the release date as it's their money that funds the project. Most developers would want wice as much dev time as they get, but the reality is this is a business and deadlines have to be set and met.
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Developers always tend to want more time, and greater resources, whether that is because they are lazy and want an easy life or because they want to develop a quality product, that is the nature of development and developers.

Publishers are almost always primarily interested in the bottom line and quality of product is almost always a secondary concern, sometimes it isn’t even that!

You very often get a tug of war between the differing interests of developers and publishers or even office politics and infighting between differing opinions in development and you don’t always have the level of control you would like.

Decent publishers learn that the quality of the product is key to long term success and profit and try and bare this in mind accordingly. Likewise decent developers learn one way or another that you always have to compromise on certain aspects of development as there is never enough time to make the exact game you want. So as a developer at the start of a project you often find yourself debating with the money men (even if you don’t have a separate publisher but the developer is the publisher…someone still has to make monetary decisions and be answered to). You have to pick your fights accordingly and get in the important features and designs you can and learn what battles you can win and what you can’t. You might want feature b in the game but you might also know that if you argue hard for that having argued hard for and won the debate for feature a, that you might lose the goodwill of the people paying the way and this can cause more problems later down the line and make for a worse game.

So sometimes as much as you want to do things a certain way, you realize and reluctantly accept the fact that you do not have total control and try and maximize the product you can develop with the control you do have…

Sometimes developing an average game in dire circumstances with limited time and resocurces can be said to be a far greater achievment than developing a great game where everything has gone swimmingly and you had everything that was required to make a great game. Equally you could develop a fairly good game with brilliant decision making and work with limited resources that is outshone by inferior decision making and work of a hugely resourced competitor...

The problem is as a producer, director, designer, programmer, artist etc....you are ultimately an employee and you can only fight your corner where you know you have some leeway. You cannot for instance argue as a producer or games designer for a new animation system or overhaul of the A.I system say if you know you are asking for time or resources beyond that which your paymasters are prepared to sign off.

This was my experience anyway…
 
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You've all completely missed the entire point of my analogy - I'm not implying that Seabass is exclusively to blame for the game's problems or for releasing or not releasing on time, what I'm saying is that to the masses Seabass is currently the 'face' of WE/PES (just as for example Sir Alex is for United), and when things go wrong it's human nature for the majority of people (specifically people who don't understand the inner workings of the issue) to simply place blame on the most prominently recognizable figure of an organization ('sack the manager!') and in this instance that of course is Seabass.
Thus whether he's responsible or not most of the unrest in the WE/PES community is going to be directed at him (after all Konami is just the inaccessible, faceless evil force behind him) ;)
 
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Seabass is only interested in satisfying his Japanese fans and any extra money he can get from Europe and the rest of the world based just on the gameplay engine is a bonus.

The fact that his career mode is still called the MasterLeague and is based on you buying a team full of world class players is just simply for Japanese soccer fans who only support the European top clubs as a majority.

The fact that he has refused for over 10 years to introduce proper league and cup structure which is just simple data entry.

Just like Fifa 07 next gen and PES 2 PS2 shit he is just making sure he gets his excuses out early for a poor PES 2009 as most sports titles in any sport on any new system are usually not up-to scratch until a 3rd installment.
 
embraceuk1 said:
Seabass is only interested in satisfying his Japanese fans and any extra money he can get from Europe and the rest of the world based just on the gameplay engine is a bonus.
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How do you know that???
Did you talk to Seabass???
As a customer it's your right to be disappointed, but wild speculations won't help...as a matter of fact i quite like the ML and judged by the great thread on this forum, quite a few others do too...
 
Bobo21 said:
I'm not implying that Seabass is exclusively to blame for the game's problems or for releasing or not releasing on time, what I'm saying is that to the masses Seabass is currently the 'face' of WE/PES (just as for example Sir Alex is for United), and when things go wrong it's human nature for the majority of people (specifically people who don't understand the inner workings of the issue) to simply place blame on the most prominently recognizable figure of an organization
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This is quite different from what it seemed like you were saying. Some people in the thread are blaming Seabass and this is irrespective of the fact that those people do not know how much if any blame lies at his door. So what you are saying is not unreasonable.
 
embraceuk1 said:
The fact that he has refused for over 10 years to introduce proper league and cup structure which is just simple data entry.
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Mmm to put a league structure in place with promotion and demotion there are quite a few significant factors that would need to be put in place.

First of all you would want the licenses for all the teams and players concerned and that would mean a lot more work on the licensing front. If you cannot get the licenses signed up in one lump via the leagues/sponsors this is a massive ball ache that is very time consuming- I know as I used to have to do the licensing for some games. Then if you get the licenses for English leagues, presumably you are going to have the same requirements for the lower leagues in all the countries represented like, Italy, Spain, Germany etc. Once again if you can’t get these licenses in bulk it very time consuming.

Ok so let’s say you have got all the licenses. You now need player databases for the vast increase in data. You also need accurate statistical player information for a HUGE number of players that you do not currently have. Where would you get this information from? It would need to be consistent with the information you already have within the current database, and you would either have to obtain the information via outsourcing or do the work internally at the company. I do not know where Komani currently get their player statistics from, whether that is outsourced or whether they have people working internally on the data- anyway there would be a lot more work required there.

Next because the database would have to be much larger you will have a increased requirement in storage for that data. That may or may not be an issue on the PS2 given- it would not be an issue for the next generation of consoles.

Ok let’s say you have all that.

Now you require players likenesses for a vast number of players.

It takes time for the graphic artists to create the player likenesses, the time required to do this work would be VAST, I mean the number of player likenesses would go through the roof.

The alternative would be to either use generic faces or only include certain likenesses and use mostly generic faces…

But then isn’t that going against what Komani have wanted to create in the first place?

Once you have managed to do all of the above with its logistical pain in the royal behind and the cost of time money and effort- what would Konami have gained?

Would many people play/use the teams from the lower leagues, would it add value to the game above and beyond the problems that it would cause to get such a feature in the game and the problems it could cause?

I personally would strongly say no. I know how difficult it would be to bring this together and I think the probelms far outweigh what can be gained.

Maybe other people would say yes....not so sure you would if you were the one chasing the myriad of licences or creating the vast number of player likenesses or having to work on the database or having to code up the databse for Ps2 etc Hey ho

Would you rather all the time effort and money went in this direction or would you rather it went in improving the A.I/animation system within the game? Or another area that would increase the playability of the product?
 
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