What's to be gained when you cheat against other players in Pro Evoution Soccer 2008 (PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, DS)? A lot, apparently. There's cash, bragging rights, and other sick pleasures to boot. Fortunately, Konami Digital Entertainment and Play.com are doing something to keep the rats off online matches. Read all about it in the full article up next.

Konami, one of the more prominent names in the video game industry, has released its financial reports for the nine month period from April to December of last year. They report the strong success of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 as well as the Metal Gear series. More in the full article.

Soccer fans, be confused no more: Konami decided to unify the Winning Eleven series under a single, consistent name - at least in the Western front. The company has confirmed that the title for Winning Eleven Soccer for US fans will now stay similar to the European version, Pro Evolution Soccer. If Konami were to keep the name for one more year, it's latest title would have been Winning Eleven Soccer 11. More at the full story.

Who would've thought that Michael Owen would still look his best on the handheld versions of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, DS).

Fans who are expecting to see him and their other favorite club players won't have much longer to wait as the premiere soccer sim from Konami is set to kick off early next year for the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS handhelds. Read more about the details of the game after the jump!

Video game news website CVG has posted the first screenshots of the Nintendo DS version of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008. You can check them all out below, but first, let's talk about the game.

The gameplay in the DS version of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is a mix of the touch screen and face buttons. Shooting and passing will be done using the A and B buttons. On the touch screen, a meter split between attack and defense is displayed. Players will have to tap the meter to choose which plan they want the team to go with. Player positions also appear to be displayed on the touch screen.

All in all, the graphics in this DS title don't look very impressive, but great gameplay can certainly pull it up. We'll see how the gameplay holds up when Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 hits North American retail outlets next year. The game is available as well for the PlayStation 3, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Wii platforms.

   

More screenshots behind the Full Article link!

  

Heads up soccer fans, Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 is flying into stores in Europe on October 26 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, PS2 and mobile phones. The handheld versions for the PSP and Nintendo DS will be arriving on November.

The game features an all new adaptive AI called Teamvision. The AI constantly adapts to the gamer's style of play, building new ways to attack and counter and to learn from past mistakes. Konami president Kunio Eno made the announcement, expressing his own enthusiasm for the game saying:

[I reckon it's] the greatest football game of all time. Demand is massive for what is easily the best Pro Evolution Soccer title to date, and we anticipate record sales as we bring the series to PlayStation 3 for the first time, and unleash stunning versions for all leading formats.

Konami has just opened an official Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PSP, DS, PlayStation 2, and PC) website for the fans. Well, not exactly a full-fledged site, if you were looking for more game-related details.

Depending on your nationality (or spoken language), the PES 2008 website hosts links for the various European countries, as well as Japan and Australia. It currently hosts links to other related sites, such as the PES league community sites, the official Konami website, and the KonamiStyle online store.

We recommend that the readers give the site try, which is available via the read link below. We'll also let you know if the PES 2008 site updates with any new information in the near future, hopefully with some snippets on any new teams coming into play.

Konami is releasing some new details for their upcoming Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 game. This particular snippet may interest the more hardcore soccer fans out there, as it lists some of the licensed teams that are expected to appear in the game. Read the list below to see who's joining alongside PES 2008's national teams:

• Juventus Turin
• AC Milan
• Celtic
• Porto
• Newcastle
• Tottenham
• RSC Anderlecht
• HJK Helsinki
• IFK Goteborg
• Panathinaicos
• Spartak Moscow
• Fenerbache
• NK Dinamo Zagreb
• FC Basel amongst

That only appears to be a snippet of thing to come - Konami expects to have over 250 teams cropping up in PES 2008. Further subdivided, that's 3000+ individual players to work with. Check back again in case we hear any further updates for the team lineup for Konami's title heading for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PSP, DS, PlayStation 2, and PC.

Wondering if you favorite country will be included in Konami Digital Entertainment's latest Pro Evolution Soccer release? Erik Hansson over at the Level7 site has just picked up what appears to be a complete listing of the national teams making it to PES 2008 (Xbox 360, PS3, PSP, DS, PC).

That's all the details we've got on this news, which ties in nicely with the celebrities expected to make an appearance in the game. Stay tuned in case we receive more update - or if some lucky gamer confirms this lineup based on PES 2008's upcoming demo release. For now, here's the list (translated by the Winning Eleven blog):

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• England
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Israel

The complete list is available in the Full Article

In an official announcement made not later than today, Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH revealed that the company's Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 will be featuring none other than Michael Owen, English striker and one of Newcastle United's pride and glory, on both the packaging (UK specific) and the promotional materials for the game.

Together with Cristiano Ronaldo, Owen will be combining image and skill on the UK packshots of Pro Evolution Soccer's latest installment. Barring any critical opinion of his choice for Newcastle over Liverpool, Owen still keeps a reputation level with his 178 league goals, 37 of which were for England.

"Securing Michael Owen is a real coup for Konami. Since he burst on to the scene, he has proven himself an incredible goal-scorer, netting at every level both domestic and international," said Jon Murphy, Team Leader for Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 at Konami.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 will be heading to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows PC over DVD, PS2, PSP and Nintendo DS by fall of 2007, featuring Konami's new Teamvision artificial intelligence system for dynamic and real-time play.