It was our day off and my other half had a two hour yoga class. With a lot of my time being consumed by running a business and a wife who doesn’t approve of my penchant for video games, this was the perfect opportunity to hit East Asia’s Mecca of gaming – The Golden Computer Arcade in Sham Shui Po (高登電腦中心).
Located a couple of stops away from the tourist hotspots of TST, Jordan and Mong Kok, the modest, two-floor mall is a gamer’s paradise. There are about 30 small video game stores, operating side-by-side within the mall, showcasing accessories, consoles and modern and vintage games in their window displays.
I first visited the mall eleven years ago, and, still to this day, it was nothing like I had seen anywhere else before. As well as the packaged items being exhibited, I was able to gauge the latest gaming trends as staff would be playing both console and handheld games between serving customers. As I had left my PS2 back in London, the purpose of my visit was to purchase a PSP and Winning Eleven. I still remember that first visit to the mall in 2006. The first thing I noticed shortly after entering the mall was the game that the stores’ employees were playing. It wasn’t Gran Turismo, GTA, NBA Live, Madden, Pro Yakyu or Resident Evil. The majority of them were playing Konami’s Winning Eleven.
Golden Era
Hong Kong, like Japan and South Korea, was a Winning Eleven stronghold. Sure, I would see EA’s FIFA on display, but, even with its EPL & Bundesliga licenses, it couldn’t eat Winning Eleven’s dust. The Hong Kong market had utilised Konami’s editing suite and created a localised option file, which saw the likes of South China and Kitchee up against the European titans of AC Milan, Chelsea and Real Madrid. However, it wasn’t the option file and access to local players and teams that had seized the former colony; it was what was happening on the pitch.
Far from the partisan support that Konami enjoyed in Asia, the coveted title for the best football game on the planet was hotly contested back home in London by two gamer profiles. The cognoscente, who appreciated polished, refined gameplay and looked beyond the brash, flashy licenses, was in the PES camp, and then you had the superficial gamer, who valued the logos, sponsors and hype that came with EA’s packaging and promotion of FIFA.
I was in the PES camp since the late 90s as I was looking for a game which could match the joy that Sensible Soccer gave me, and ISS 98 on the PS1 gave me just that. Indeed, ISS 98 laid the foundations for what would be the best football game on the PS2 and arguably of all time, Winning Eleven 9. As what’s expected with a Japanese company’s efficiency and determination to succeed, the ball physics, build-up play, pace, players’ animations and AI was as close as a football simulation could get to perfection on the PS2. What I loved about the game was a player’s individuality. You could execute that perfectly timed sliding challenge as John Terry, dribble through half the opposition and fool the keeper with a dummy before slotting the ball home as Ronaldinho or have Nakamura curl a free-kick over the wall and into the top corner. For want of a better phrase, the game felt natural and real.
Konami’s Winning Eleven owes much of its success on the pitch to Shingo Seabass Takatsuka, who was Executive Producer of the game up until 2013. Seabass and his team had the dexterity to convert his vision of football onto a video game console and, even more remarkable, make significant improvements each year. Going beyond the surface, Winning Eleven 9’s gameplay was a representation of how the game was played in Japan. A possession-based approach has seen the emergence of technically gifted players like Hidetoshi Nakata, Shunsuke Nakamura, Yasuhito Endo, Mitsuo Ogasawara and Kengo Nakamura shortly before and during the same period that Winning Eleven was in its prime.
Turbulent Transition
The tide began to turn shortly after the PS3’s arrival. Winning Eleven’s debut on the new platform was, by Seabass’ own admission, a failure. While Konami was struggling to get to grips with seventh gen, EA were making real progress. Not only did EA’s FIFA have the glitzy presentation, but it was glaringly obvious they were reproducing their rival’s gameplay. Winning Eleven 2009 offered hope as the mechanics were closer to the PS2 version, but Konami went back a few steps again as their 2010 release was rigid and clunky. By 2013, the connoisseurs who were sneering at the superficial fanboys of FIFA were jumping the Konami ship.
Takatsuka left Konami in 2013, but one of Winning Eleven’s own, Adam Bhatti, was brought in. Adam was the force behind WENB, which was the game’s most popular fansite. This was somebody who appreciated and understood the core values of what made Winning Eleven the greatest football game on the PS2, and the hire demonstrated Konami’s intention of reaching out and engaging with the community. If there was a person who could communicate to the development team in Tokyo what the fanbase wanted and get the series back to its PS2 heyday, it was him. The last two releases, 2016 and 2017, have seen Konami garner gaming awards and score positive reviews. However, sales figures and social media tell a different story.
Roles Reversed
As I walked through The Golden Computer Arcade this time, I noticed that not an awful lot has changed since my first visit in 2006. Exorbitant rental fees here in Hong Kong have caused some stores to move to smaller units within the mall, but most of the employees are still playing football games. However, they’re not all playing Winning Eleven.
If it wasn’t for the localised patch and Winning Eleven’s editing tools, I think FIFA would be dominating the market the same way Winning Eleven did eleven years ago. I asked a couple of different shops why there’s been a shift, and the answer was the same: gameplay. “FIFA feels more real, you know?” A short, simple answer, but a big statement about the progress FIFA has made and Winning Eleven’s decline. It was an early weekday afternoon, and one of the store’s employees invited me to play a game of Winning Eleven. As well as ball physics and the crazed run a player makes after scoring a goal (players look higher than Maradona’s cocaine-fuelled celebration at the ’94 World Cup), something which we discussed was the players’ movements; a player lifting the kicking foot high in the air after completing a short side-foot pass or the lift and height of the ball from very little backlift. Another shop was selling a pre-owned copy of WE2017. I hadn’t seen that before, and something which would have been unprecedented during the PS2 era.
A trip in November last year to Konami’s homeland, Nagoya and Osaka (Osaka is the very city which developed ISS 98), painted a similar picture to Hong Kong. The Japanese are very patriotic and loyal to their teams and brands, so the inclusion of the Samurai Blue, Japan’s national team, has aided Konami greatly, but FIFA, with its addition of the J-League, was a lot more visible than I had seen in Japan before, and I don’t think it will be too long before FIFA eclipses Winning Eleven in the land of the rising sun.
The agreements Konami have secured with UEFA and elite European clubs like Barcelona, Liverpool and Dortmund suggest Konami are trying to play EA at their own game. They’re trying to get more exposure by advertising in stadiums and creating a bigger social media presence (a Barca player celebrating a PES goal on Twitter). And then there’s Myclub, which is Konami’s response to FIFA’s Ultimate Team. This is all great, but has it come at a price?
Fight for the Pitch
The community recently celebrated former cover star Adriano’s birthday, which was quite symbolic as Winning Eleven is the Adriano of a football simulation; it has the potential of greatness, but that potential is not being realised, which is why there’s so much frustration on social media. I don’t agree with how some of that frustration is conveyed (some of it is just downright trolling), but I think a lot of it is a result of the community knowing what Konami can do. FIFA is pummeling Winning Eleven by 10 million global PS4 sales today because EA are closer to that winning formula; a game that will keep the consumer engaged and coming back for more until the next release – just as Konami had done with Winning Eleven on the PS2.
The improvements to team play and AI are being negated by poor ball physics and player animations, which are worse than the PS2 versions (PS2!!!). Winning Eleven has a brilliant editing community and Konami do a great job in reaching out, so they need to focus more on gameplay instead of dedicating their resources to tying up contracts. Konami should be using the gameplay from the PS2 version as a foundation for what they’ve been doing on seventh and eighth gen, just as they did with ISS 98 and Winning Eleven. I recognise the improvements, but I don’t want to feel frustrated or disappointed within a month of buying the game. Embrace the criticism (constructive, of course) and use it to improve the game. I don’t want to be ridiculed by the youth of the world’s second biggest economy when I tell them that Winning Eleven was the best football game on the planet. Damn it, Konami, I want to hear Jon Kabira shout ‘yellow card-a-des’ and ‘shooto!’
EA’s FIFA has made gargantuan strides in recent years, but there’s still something about it that doesn’t feel as pure as Winning Eleven did on the PS2. Marriage plus running a business means I’m having less time to indulge in living out my footballing dreams on a video game console, so I’m pleading with you, Konami, to get 2018 right. Winning Eleven is in good hands, really good hands, but perhaps a lot of damage has already been done. While Konami has been distracted by licenses, grasping modern tech and competing with UT, EA’s FIFA has been getting stronger and stronger on the pitch with each release an upgrade of the previous title. Question is: will the pitch be Konami’s ever again?