Konami and UEFA Champions League Parting Ways, PES Will Not Lose Any Team Licenses

[Steve_OS]

It seems a pretty big license just opened up as UEFA and Konami announced they are...

Written By: Chris Sanner

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[Chrisx]

"Of course the series’ gameplay, a favorite amongst many, won’t be changing no matter which licenses are held by PES"

That was 10 years ago now? Anyway that's terrible news. I don't mean the loss of the licence, I mean the fact that gameplay won't be changing.

[TexasFan2005]

Horrible news. When they bought the license for PES 2009 I was so happy that Konami were actually going to implement the tournament into Master League instead of selling a totally separate Champions League game every few years or so like the other company.

This also explains the reasons why UEFA didn't list "Officially Sponsored UCL Videogames" on their sponsorship/partner renewal agendas (found here).

Also, the last portion of the press release suggests we may not see the CL in any game for a while:

Jonas Lygaard, senior director of brand & business development for Konami Digital Entertainment B.V. said: "The UEFA Champions League licence has given us a platform to create unique experiences and provide football fans from all over the world with an opportunity to enjoy this competition first-hand.

"This year, however, we will shift our focus into other areas. We will continue to explore alternative ways UEFA and Konami can continue to work together, as our relationship remains strong."

[lareka]

They needed more licenses to compete with FIFA but they lost their strongest license that they had in hand.. WOW. That's pretty bad news for PES

[tfcfan4life]

This is pretty big news and bad news as well. Having the license added so much to the game and implementation into the master league. I hate generic cups and competitions. Maybe Fifa will pick up this license for their game now.

[smegmaz]

We'll see what they do with the free'd up resources. Who cares about CL when no one plays ML because it's so broken? You can't even use the CL ball in friendlies when playing against pals at your house.

[TSGuy]

Damn, I loved the CL integration in Master League man..this grows the list of things to mod for modders to mod next year. This is pretty bad news.

[PES3Paul]

Devastating, if not catastrophic to PES. And the comments section isn't showing on the main page where the story is.