14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Sports Interactive and publisher SEGA Europe have announced that the Football Manager Classic 2014 version for the PlayStation Vita handheld will be launched on all European markets on April 11.
An official release date for gamers in the United States will be revealed at a later date, according to the official forum reveal.
The title will be offered both at retail and via digital download from the PlayStation Network, making it easy to pick up for all fans.
The new version of the game is designed to offer cross platform capabilities with the PC release, which means that gamers can use one single save file on both devices in order to stay connected to their club both at home and on the road.
Football Manager Classic 2014 on the Vita will be the first mobile game in the long-running franchise that will incorporate the 3D match engine, which means that players will be able to see all their games in three dimensions in order to see exactly how their teams are performing.
Miles Jacobson, the studio director at Sports Interactive, is quoted as saying that, “It’s great to finally be able to release FMC Vita. This game has been the most technically challenging that we’ve ever worked on – we’ve essentially fit a PC game that needs loads of memory, a mouse and a keyboard into Sony’s wonderful handheld with a touch screen – and the help we’ve had from all of our partners has been wonderful.”
The Classic version of Football Manager 2014 focuses on the matches themselves and the tactics associated with them, while eliminating some of the more superfluous options introduced in the other game mode.
Sports Interactive says that it is trying to streamline the experience and allow dedicated gamers to get through one real-world season in one evening of playing.
Shahid Ahmad, the senior business development manager at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, adds, “For years, the dream of many Football Manager fans has been to be able to enjoy a full version of their favorite game wherever they are. Sports Interactive and SEGA have realized that dream on the PS Vita, and we at PlayStation are delighted with their ground-breaking results.”
At the moment, the team at Sports Interactive is already working on this year’s version of Football Manager, which is apparently set to include more than 1,000 improvements to the core mechanics.