Konami accuses FIFA of copying Pro Evolution Soccer.

247 The eternal rivalry between the biggest football games has gained another chapter after an interview with John Murphy, the producer of Pro Evolution Soccer in Europe, on the Eurogamer website. According to him, Electronic Arts copied elements from Konami's franchise for its title, FIFA. Murphy claims that FIFA was a completely different game from PES, but that it started taking creations from Konami until it became the version that exists today.

Konami's PES was once the leader in popularity and sales in the genre, but today it's losing out to its competitor. The producer also said that "it's no coincidence" that the next title in the EA franchise focuses on improved artificial intelligence for athletes and physics mechanics, as this was already being done for PES in 2011.

"You can give them credit for what they've done and where they've gotten now, and you can see it [FIFA] as a valuable product with ideas that we should all learn from, but we can't forget that PES innovated all those ideas and they copied them," Murphy accused. The producer added that he's not necessarily saying they're copying Konami's game right now, but that they have a long history of copying PES to get where they wanted to be.

In an interview with the same website on the 11th, the president of the FIFA brand stated that the EA franchise is prepared to rival PES in the next generation. According to Andrew Wilson, the next game in the series will focus on captivating players even when they are not in front of the television, involving other platforms such as Apple's iOS and Facebook. Regarding PES being the first game to use Kojima's FOX engine, Wilson assured that FIFA will adopt measures just as aggressive.

At the time of writing, FIFA had not yet commented on the Konami producer's statement.