May 10, 2006 - We had a chance to sit down with Miles Jacobson, the Studio Director of Sports Interactive at the Sega booth to find out some of the plans that his company has for Worldwide Soccer Manager 2007. While he wasn't willing to fully spill the beans about the game at the show, he did inform us that he'd announce more details during the start of the World Cup tournament, and that he expected that the PC, Mac and Intel Mac versions of the title would be released most likely by the end of October. The 360 and PSP versions of the title would follow in November. He also indicated that Worldwide Soccer Manager would be primarily released via digital download.
While there were no current plans to bring it to the PS3 or the Wii, Jacobson saw his company primarily as entertainers, and relished the idea of doing something on both of the new systems. Besides that, his company has been hard at work updating Football Manager pop quiz machines that will be put in pubs across Europe the week before the World Cup begins.
What was revealed about the title is that there will be over 40 new features from last years version, which Jacobson viewed as an evolution of the game's design rather than a revolution. He also made a point of stating that the gameplay is much more user friendly, with a lot more tutorials, hints and tips for newer players to the franchise. Sports Interactive has also expanded the network modes for the PC and 360 versions, and Jacobson alluded to the possibility that there could be cross platform play between these versions, as well as connectivity options between the PSP and any PS3 versions they design.
Jacobson ended by talking about the fact that the title is so accurate that Fox Sports has been using the simulations to predict what will happen in each World Cup Match. Not only does it accurately track the varying altitude of stadiums, the climate and the weather, it also accurately remembers the past history of a team, and how they do in a location. He pointed out the fact that Brazil has never done well in a tournament hosted in Europe, so they weren't necessarily rated highly. In fact, the last simulation that they did predicted that England would square off against Germany in the championship match.