PES 2012: Pro Evolution Soccer

Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 (officially abbreviated as PES 2012 and known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2012 in Asia) is a video game developed and published by Konami (and MicroByte in Argentina) with production assistance from the Blue Sky Team. Lionel Messi, who had been the series’ cover star since PES 2009, has been replaced by PES 2008 cover star Cristiano Ronaldo, while Shinji Kagawa has taken Messi’s place as the Japanese version’s cover star—the covers for the United States and Latin America feature Santos players Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo. Like previous versions, it will be exclusively licensed by UEFA to include the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and UEFA Super Cup competitions, as well as a CONMEBOL license to include the Copa Santander Libertadores. The official UEFA Champions League uniforms will be worn by referees governing UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and UEFA Super Cup matches, a first for the series. Three licensed teams from the Primeira Liga were included in the series for the first time. On July 28, 2011, Konami confirmed that PES 2012 would be released in Japan on October 14, 2011, in Europe and October 6, 2011, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows. At Gamescom 2011, it was announced that the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2 versions would be available on October 28, 2011, and the Wii version would be available on November 4, 2011. The publisher has also confirmed that arrangements for the Nintendo 3DS and iOS platforms are in the works, with firm release dates to come. There are two demos, both of which were released for the PlayStation 3 and PC, with the Xbox 360 receiving only the second due to issues with the first. The first is based on a preview build of the game and was released on August 24, 2011, for PlayStation 3 and PC, but was not released on the Xbox 360 due to “issues on both sides,” according to Jon Murphy, PES Team Leader. The second demo was available on September 14 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.