Winning Eleven 8 sells one million copies in one day
Konami's acclaimed soccer series achieves the usual milestone in record time, as the publisher aims for more than 1.5 million sales within the year.
Konami's latest PS2 football simulation, World Soccer Winning Eleven 8, sold one million copies on its first day of release in Japan on August 5th, the Japanese publisher has announced.
The publisher now aims to sell more than 1.5 million units within the year, which would be a first for the series, although this is by no means the first time Winning Eleven has hit such a milestone.
In fact, Winning Eleven 8 is the third instalment in a row to top the one million unit mark, although it's by far the fastest; Winning Eleven 7, released last summer in Japan, took three weeks to hit that target.
Developed by Konami's Tokyo studio, Winning Eleven 8 is the latest in a hugely popular series, which appears in Europe under the Pro Evolution Soccer banner. Although it will differ in a number of key ways, Winning Eleven 8 will form the basis for the forthcoming Pro Evolution Soccer 4, which is due out on PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC later this year.
However, despite its popularity amongst simulation fans and critics, the Pro Evolution Soccer series traditionally loses out in Europe to Electronic Arts' FIFA series. Konami will be hoping that a wider range of formats - including a new Xbox version - will help redress the balance.