Pro Evolution Soccer 3 tops a million pre-orders

Publisher Konami has announced that it has received over a million UK pre-orders for this year's update to the Pro Evolution Soccer franchise, which arrives at retail on October 17th.

Although it's not clear whether that figure represents pre-orders from retail or actual customer pre-orders, it's still a hugely impressive number - and suggests that the game may enjoy one of the largest first week sales figures ever in the UK.

Last year's Pro Evolution Soccer 2 is getting close to 1.5 million units sold, with a recent boost provided by a Platinum release of the game in September. The Japanese edition of PES3 - Winning Eleven 7 - is enjoying huge success, and is still in the top ten there after around two months on sale.

Konami's October 17 launch will represent the first shot in one of the now-traditional Christmas retail battles - as the other huge football franchise, Electronic Arts' FIFA, launches its 2004 version only weeks later. As ever, there are other pretenders to the throne as well - with British publisher Codemasters hoping this year to capitalise on the loyalty of fans to their individual clubs with the Club Football range of individually branded games.