The UEFA Champions League video game license has been used by four different companies, with a surprising irregularity, given the competitions' fan-base and popularity. Debuted in 1996, the series has only had five games published so far, and after being in the hands of Krisalis Software, Silicon Dreams and EA Sports, the license now lies in the hands of Konami.
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Krisalis had a strong history of football video games in the past, and inclusively released European Club Soccer, a game that simulated the old knockout format in 1992. With the official branding, Krisalis worked on a 3D engine, fitted with the Tacti-grid and gameplay in the line of their older games. It had all 16 teams present in the 1996/1997 Champions League with the actual groups, plus national teams. Only one title was produced, distributed by Philips Media.
With Silicon Dreams, who also developed the World League Soccer series, Champions League had four titles, 98-99, Season 1999-2000,Season 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 released, aimed mostly at the PlayStation, but PC releases existed for the games. It replaced the national teams with finalists of all competitions since 1960, also including scenarios (in 98-99, with fake settings, in 1999–2000, based on the previous finals, including the 1999 final last minutes). The first two games were published by Eidos Interactive, whilst the last two were published by Take-Two Interactive.
In November 2002, Electronic Arts announced the licensing deal and further development of the game, which was published before the second round on the 2004–2005 competition started. It uses the same FIFA engine, and was now the fourth licensed football title EA has in its catalog.
UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 was released in 2004 and had licenses to many leagues in Europe, stadiums including Stamford Bridge and Anfield and also licenses to the players for the clubs. Andy Gray and Clive Tyldesley did the commentary for the game and the graphics and gameplay had been taken from FIFA 2005. A career mode was made into the game where a player had to win the Champions League with various scenarios. EA sports talk radio, which was incorporated into the career mode, included the voice of ex-footballer Tony Cascarino, with his former radio partner at TalkSPORT, Patrick Kinghorn.
UEFA Champions League 2006-2007 was released by EA Sports on March 23, 2007. There are four versions of the game, one for the PS2, one for the PSP, one for the PC and one for the Xbox 360. The game modes differ among PS2, PSP and 360. The PSP, PS2 and PC versions were developed by HB Studios while the Xbox 360 version was developed by EA Canada.
On November 9, 2008, Konami officially released the news that they had secured a four-year deal for the rights of the Champions League starting with Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 and ending with Pro Evolution Soccer 2013. The deal will allow Konami to use the details of the UEFA Champions League in a separate game mode within the game,[1] although not all teams in the competition have featured in the game so far.