if you've always wondered what the Godfather of PES does with his Master League team, well Seabass gave us some insight there too.
How would you describe your approach to the ongoing development of PES - a labour of love, or more a fascinating technical puzzle?
Seabass: "Of course, the team and myself always like to take on new technical challenges, but on top of that there is the love for football as well. We take on new challenges because we want to create a 'real' football game. It's more the love toward the sport that I want to represent in the game."
PS2 is getting on for five years old. Do you think there's more you can squeeze out of the game technically?
Seabass: "There are loads more player motions that we'd like to include, but we feel we've reached the limit of the current hardware. I also have lots of ideas related to AI that I'd like to implement, but again, due to the limitations of machine power, I can't put that in. And also you might have already noticed some slow-downs, and that's because we're crunching so much information - we're squeezing a lot of things in there so, we're afraid that we might hit the limit quite soon."
When you were making PES4 for Xbox, did working on a slightly more powerful console open up any more exciting opportunities for new AI, animations and so on?
Seabass: "Yes, you're right - the Xbox and the PC are more powerful and we can implement new player motions an AI. However this time it's our first try, so we stuck to a conversion to see how it goes. But in the future we would like to try out the difference. As a team, we designed the game for PlayStation and PlayStation 2 from the first game onwards, so even though the [Xbox] hardware is better, it's still quite difficult to make it better than the original PS2 version. However, this is why we put the online element in Xbox because there was more space. If you think of it like a glass of water, there's just more room on Xbox to add more so we decided online should be it."
Why wasn't online in the PS2 version this year, and are there any plans for PS2 online PES going forward?
Seabass: "Well, technically it was quite possible in terms of having PS2 online. However when you compare the two first parties' infrastructure towards online - meaning Xbox live [vs Sony's Online Network] everything is virtually there, with the game servers and services and we thought this was a better choice. In the PS2 service, we have to create our own game servers and that kind of thing so that's why we had to pass on this one [PES4]. However, we already have PES running in the studio on PS2 online. So we're waiting for Sony to construct a better infrastructure for PlayStation and also the users be hooked up on broadband. I'm pretty sure we're going to have [online] on PES5 for the PS2."
How far ahead does planning take the series, does the team already know what will be in PES6 and therefore know what the advances and limitations of PES5 will be?
Seabass: "Well of course we are always looking and planning ahead, however it's the end of the lifecycle for PlayStation 2. Therefore we're only really looking ahead to PES5, and we already have ideas - we're starting to work on it already. However for the future, like you said PES6, we're thinking of next gen platforms so we're just constructing ideas about that."
What kind of things do you think the next generation of consoles will allow you to do that you can't already in the current generation?
Seabass: "We predict that we'll have many more motions, we have loads of motion capture data of movements that we want to implement but, quite frankly, in the current console, due to limitations, we can't put them in. So, you know, space is one thing. Which totally opens up our new gameplay because we'll get more variations of dribbling or passing. You will see, right away, that there's a difference because there's more movement in there. Also, AI. Right now the team members have to consider 'will the AI process in this machine.' We're really holding back ideas that we really want to implement. So, in the next gen games we won't have to hold back that little bit more. We'll be able to put in AI to make attacking smarter, or defending smarter. Also, the obvious is online. Our team has loads of ideas for online but we can't do it because we're almost close to the limit for PS2. We don't know the specs yet, but we're hoping that the next gen will provide us with more space and more power so that we can do all this."
What are the team's plans for PlayStation Portable (PSP)? Are there any plans to make those games compatible with PS2?
Seabass: "Well, currently nothing really concrete. We've no concrete specs for the PSP version that we could announce at this time. We're not holding back the announcement, it's just that we're in the concept development stage to utilise what's best for the PSP handheld game."
When you and your team first heard about Sony's plan for PSP, what ideas immediately inspired you - what did you immediately think could be possible?
Seabass: "There were two things. Obviously it's portable, so you can have it anywhere at any time. Second was LAN - you can connect it via LAN, so that really inspired us."
So maybe we could have 22 players all in the same game?
Seabass: "We always say that one of our final goals is to have 11 versus 11, but the team doesn't believe we can do this on PSP before doing it on a [home] console. Technically we could do it, connecting on the PSP LAN, however it will probably not give you that satisfying PES feeling if we try to do that on the PSP platform."
Is it possible that you could exchange data between the PSP version and PS2 version? Master League teams for example?
Seabass: "Yes, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned portable as one of the things that inspired us. One of the points that I was thinking was, since it's portable, it doesn't have to be the action that's going on. You can take it wherever you like, and configure your Master League teams and that kind of thing. Then, when you go back to your house again, you can play the game. That was kind of the initial idea I had."
Do you have a Master League team of your own, and which players do you always buy for your team?
Seabass: "In real life football too, I really like Inter Milan. So I buy the Japanese players because they're quite cheap and quite good players. Apart from that I like Recoba, the Uruguayan player. I buy him quickly and set him as a key player in my team."
What's the best way to play PES - digital or analogue?
Seabass: "The D-pad has a quicker response, I think. However I see a lot of players in Japan using the analogue stick as well and they're as good as the players how use the D-pad. So if you're really pushing the buttons in and your thumbs are really sore, you should use the analogue stick and get used to it. In Japan, when we have tournaments, the guys bring their laptop joysticks."
Seabass has mentioned that man-to-man marking in this version isn't as effective as he'd like, so what strategies are most effective in the new game?
Seabass: "In the past we got complaints that having three back in defence, instead of four, was quite weak. So, in PES4, we've strengthened the defence when you're using three. I recommend that you effectively use the off-side trap, because that's really effective in PES4. Man to man coverage isn't as good as I'd like it to be, but having looked at Greece in Euro 2004 I thought that I needed to look at how the weaker teams would use man-to-man to be effective, especially if the teamwork is good."
LATER ON, AKI SAITO MENTIONED HOW THE TEAM is constantly working on PES to make it as close to real football as possible. All the programmers, often including Seabass himself, video the most recent games from around the world, from domestic Japanese to the Premiership, and of course international. They have these constantly running on monitors so that they can analyse and reconstruct moves in PES, in order to bring the series that little bit closer to real football day by day.
So when the time comes to release each new version of PES, Seabass decides which ideas are working the best in order to include them, and holds off the ideas that aren't quite perfect just yet. Evolution is literally at the centre of PES, as opposed to its competitors that aim to are driven by desire to include new features for the sake of new features, that may not always be right for football.
It's Seabass's aim to take PES as far away from what he calls 'digital football' as possible, the goal being to make PES pure football in the end. At the moment Seabass feels that he and his team are not even halfway there.
We'd like to thank Mr Seabass Takatsuka for his time, and Mr Saito for his kind assistant
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