Konami acknowledges eFootball's "incompletion" and says it's taking fan feedback "very seriously"
"We have prioritised improvements based on the feedback we received."
Konami has recognised that "multiple factors" contributed to eFootball's disasterous launch last year, but says it has "prioritised improvements and corrections based on the feedback and opinions we received".
As Tom summarised for us earlier this week, eFootball - the new name for PES - arrived in a disastrous state late last year, even though Konami warned players it would arrive in extremely limited form akin to a demo.
Now, however, the beleaguered publisher has acknowledged the "incompletion" of the game to our sister site VGC, pointing the finger to several factors it believes contributed to the game's dreadful reception on release.
“It’s hard to point to one deciding aspect," a spokesperson said. "The incompletion of the game came as a result of multiple factors including the transition to a new football game engine, the support of next generation consoles such as PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, the change of play style to free to play and furthermore, we tried to deliver new eFootball 2022 for players as soon as possible.
“Resultantly, the game received harsh feedback about the quality. Since eFootball’s launch back in September, however, we have prioritised improvements and corrections based on the feedback and opinions we received.
"We are taking the opinions of our players very seriously. Since the release last September, we have prioritised improvements and corrections based on the feedback and opinions we received," the statement concludes. "We will continue to work on the game’s improvement and as always, the player’s valued feedback is much appreciated."
Asked why the developer chose not to push back the release until the game was ready, Konami said it "didn’t have any plans to postpone the release because we ultimately had a strong desire to deliver the new eFootball 2022 game to users as soon as possible" and was keen to release in "parallel with the start of the European football season".
Earlier this week, we learned Konami will attempt to salvage its struggling eFootball 2022 with the game's long-awaited v1.0.0 patch - which was originally set to arrive soon after launch last November.
Konami insisted the game would evolve over time, but players have been left waiting months for this v1.0.0 update to arrive. In the meantime, eFootball's mobile spin-off was postponed, and the game's controversial premium player pack was pulled from sale.