Konami has today confirmed that PES 2020 won’t feature women’s football. As of right now, there is set to be no PES 2020 women’s football included at launch, or seemingly, beyond launch. The decision may come as a surprise to some, however, considering the rise of women’s football in recent years. Some may have thought that women’s football might have been given a look in with this year’s PES given the rebrand to eFootball PES 2020 and the rise in the sport, but it appears as though this is not going to be the case.
Speaking to GameSpot, Lennart Bobzien (PES European brand manager) explained Konami’s stance on PES 2020 women’s football inclusion. Bobzien argued that while he “personally support[s] the women’s game and [has] been following the World Cup closely,” Konami “currently” does not “have any plans to integrate women into eFootball PES 2020.”
While adding women’s football into PES 2020 would require a solid amount of work for the developer, the lack of integration could be seen as disappointing for many. Women’s football has been featured in PES’s rival, FIFA, in some form or another since FIFA 16. Since then, however, the popularity of women’s football has grown exponentially. The current Women’s World Cup is proving especially popular.
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The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup is currently taking place in France, and its semi-final match between the USA vs England broke records for the sport and TV. According to the BBC, the match reached a peak audience of 11.7 million. This was the highest peak TV audience recorded in the UK in 2019 and the highest ever recorded peak audience for women’s football in the UK. What’s more, that 11.7 million peak audience accounted for “50.8% of the available audience.” It’s safe to say that women’s football is growing in popularity.
eFootball PES 2020 releases on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on September 10, 2019.
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