Over the past few weeks, Konami has announced top-level partnerships with three major football clubs leading up to the release of eFootball PES 2021: São Paulo Futebol Clube, Sport Club Corinthians Paulista, and Flamengo’s football team. Each of Konami’s three official global partnerships is built on relationships Konami has already established for earlier eFootball PES games.
In early August, Konami announced they would become the “Official Global Partner” for São Paulo FC. The next day, they announced a similar deal with Corinthians. Today, they added defending Brasileiro Serie A champions Flamengo to their hat trick of top-level partnerships. As part of each of these deals, the three clubs will continue to be video game exclusive to eFootball PES through the PES 2021 update.
The Importance of Official Global Partnerships
Why are these deals, which are up-scale versions of existing deals, so important? Maintaining exclusivity over the clubs’ likenesses, kits, logos, and stadiums keeps them out of competing football simulation games. These partnerships also make Konami and PES logos a prominent feature on uniforms and in media. This additional visibility is huge, especially for a game that’s trying to compete in the same lane as EA (FIFA 20 topped sales charts in the UK in its first week of release).
These announcements are important leading up to the release of PES 2021, especially given its unique release strategy. Rather than a new game, eFootball PES 2021 Season Update (its full Christian name) will release on September 15 as an updated version of PES 2020. This gives Konami more room to focus on developing eFootball PES 2022 for next-gen consoles. You don’t need to own PES 2020 to play PES 2021. However, players can get a discount ordering the PES 2021 update through PES 2020.
eFootball PES 2021 Season Update will be available on September 15 for $29.99 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. For more ways to get updates on PES 2021, check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and on our YouTube channel.
