Following Eastside Hockey Manager (working title) due to be released Summer 2004, Sports Interactive's next product with SEGA will be the latest incarnation of their highly-acclaimed football management technology. Maintaining the heritage and experience accumulated through 15 years of development as creators of the Championship Manager® series of multi-award winning and chart-topping games, the new game will be renamed as part of a fresh branding exercise as Football ManagerTM. Due for release Q4 2004, this year's edition entitled Football Manager 2005, will see numerous advancements in technology and gameplay, including new tactics, pre- and post-match analysis and other features designed to immerse players further into the game.
SEGA has rights to distribute Sports Interactive's games across all relevant territories using its global publishing operation. As SEGA grows its portfolio of products to match games offerings to market-specific tastes, the partnership with Sports Interactive will also see the UK developer's games spreading to a broader market than before, with additional sports being considered for future management games.
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Naoya Tsurumi, President and COO, SEGA Europe Ltd, commented, "SEGA Europe's relationship with SI is a significant partnership for both companies. SEGA is looking forward to growing its base of market-specific products outside Japan, and signing one of the most important developers in the UK underlines our strong commitment to this."
"We are absolutely delighted to have signed a long-term deal with one of the biggest players in the global games business," added Miles Jacobson, Managing Director, Sports Interactive. "We're justifiably proud of what we've achieved with our previous games and business relationships, but we believe that this new agreement will take us to even higher levels. With both Football Manager 2005 and Eastside Hockey Manager due for release within a matter of months, we're confident that 2004 will be just the first of many successful years for Sports Interactive and SEGA."
Matthew Woodley, European Marketing Director, SEGA Europe Ltd, added, "We are delighted to extend our relationship with Sports Interactive. We're really excited to be working with them with one of the most important PC games ever and doubly excited to be able to help them achieve their goal of worldwide distribution. Football Manager 2005 is going to be a huge hit this year and something we're going to have a lot of fun working with."