Konami has gone ahead and announced the ever popular soccer sim, ProEvolution Soccer (PES) 2009 due for release this October. To rival that the dudes at EA have gone ahead and announced its nemesis, in the form of the eagerly anticipated successor to the technically brilliant and adept FIFA 08 which is to be released somewhere in October itself. What seems imminent now is that the two giants are heading towards a head-on collision!!!

It’s was not long time back that we saw some ruffled feathers in the EA camp. During the pre FIFA 08 era, the dudes at EA were really weary about the challenges the developers from Konami threw at them. PES was considered by far the most photo realistic soccer sim ever to hit market. For God’s sake we even saw the strikers cringe every time they took a shot at goal and defenders gawk at the ball every now and then (Have a look below if you do not believe me).

Then a stage arrived when we experienced the jerseys of the players sway with every movement they made. That was the amount of realism that went into the making of these PES games. As my friend Po in the movie Kung Fu Panda puts it” It is said that his enemies would go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness!” This was what happened eventually with FIFA. But instead of getting bogged down, they took stock of things and as they say rest is history!!!

Come October 2007 and the fans witnessed the critically panned PES 2008, thanks to its buggy online mode and the crappy PS3 version helping EA leap frog ahead in the race between the two goliaths. Not to mention FIFA Next-Gen’s amazing gameplay and online capabilities (with the “Be a Pro” mode at the forefront of them all) aiding EA to become the numero uno of Soccer sims available in the market.

Konami now stands deserted by most of its staunch supporters who needless to say have become FIFA faithfuls, me included(for the time being atleast). They face an uphill task which involves winning back their fan base and dislodging EA from the summit, all of which happens when the face-off begins this october. But trust the Giant Japanese company to adhere to the japanese idiom i.e.,”Koketsu ni irazunba koji o ezu” which quite literally means “If you do not enter the tiger’s cave, you will not catch its cub.” So all i can say as of now is that if everything goes to plan this autumn, we soccer fans will have our hands full and by the end of it, Football will be the eventual winner.

Guest Blogger Nikhil Naik from Bangalore.