Winning Eleven is No More

February 5th, 2008, 18:13 Posted By: wraggster

Today Konami confirmed to IGN that the franchise formerly titled Winning Eleven Soccer in the United States will now be known as Pro Evolution Soccer 2008. This in no way affects the title in Europe where it will stay known as Pro Evolution Soccer.

While we lament North America's loss of the Winning Eleven brand name (especially this year, of all years -- if Konami had stuck with the name, the game could have been called "Winning Eleven 11", and now the world will never know how awesome the world's greatest game name could have been), the change does make the series easier to talk about. Winning Eleven has always been known as "Pro Evolution Soccer (PES)" in Europe for years, while the US branch of Konami struggled with a number of names for the soccer series. Finally with the 2007 edition, Konami set up this change-over with the first step of a hybrid name, "Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer." Having both names in the game was a bold, pan-global compromise uniting all PES/W11 fans under one banner in the great land of America, but it was also an unwieldy name sure to collapse under the weight of two titanic titles clashing as one. This year, there is no conciliation in the name -- outside of Japan, Winning Eleven will now only be known as Pro Evolution Soccer. A sad day for fans of the "Winning Eleven" denomination dynasty? Perhaps. But with the grand "Pro Evolution Soccer" monogram emblazoned across the newly-christened package, Konami's winning eleventh soccer game promises to take the series to new heights of glory.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is scheduled to ship on March 11, 2008.

http://uk.psp.ign.com/articles/849/849378p1.html

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