Never one to bite his tongue, Pro Evo team leader Jon Murphy has again attacked the development team of his game’s greatest rival, EA Sports, suggesting to OPM that the sports game giants are concentrating too much on aesthetics and not on the game engine or substance:

“Maybe EA thinks they’ve gone far enough with gameplay and they’ve got other things to do. Maybe they want to attract a different kind of audience with different features.”

In comparison, Murphy says that the developmental changes in this year’s instalment of PES are focusing predominantly on improving gameplay:

“We always focused on gameplay and that’s what we want to get back to. I’ve always thought it’s right that we should be concentrating really hard on the way you play a game against someone else, and that unique PES feeling, which is all about gameplay.”

These latest comments come hot on the tail of Murphy suggesting that FIFA would not be in the position it was in if it wasn’t for PES, and indeed that EA Sports have consciously copied PES practices and developments in order to capitalise, as well as suggesting some underhand marketing techniques that didn’t reflect the real difference in class between the two games.

In all honesty it seems like the PES team leader has a bee in his bonnet about FIFA’s perceived dominance, and if the next installment is indeed going to change the gameplay for the better, then he’s doing the right things about it. Because regardless of all of his posturing and complaining about FIFA and EA Sport’s practices, last year’s PES was not the best, and the franchise needs to return to what it always did best. And that is gameplay.

What do you think? Should John Murphy keep his opinions to himself and concentrate on getting his own house in order to ensure that PES 2013 will be all that it can be, or does he have a point?

Let us know your thoughts below.

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