Sports Interactive announces Football Manager 2008

Sports Interactive has been busy developing Football Manager Live, its massively multiplayer online football management sim, but it hasn't forgotten its core single-player game. Today sees the announcement of Football Manager 2008, which is due for release on the PC and Mac later this year. Other formats have not yet been confirmed, but Xbox 360 and PlayStation Portable versions are expected.

The game will have more than 100 new features, including revamps to the financial management and awards sections, a new transfer centre, the ability to organise fan days, and an updated match flow system--which Sports Interactive's parent company Sega Europe called "The largest change to match-day in a Sports Interactive game since the introduction of the second match engine."

The game, which sees the player take on the role of a football manager and try to take their team to the top of the league of their choice, started life as Championship Manager in 1992. After Sports Interactive's split with Eidos in 2004 the name was changed to Football Manager, but the games have continued to attract a mass following in the UK and beyond. Sega Europe acquired Sports Interactive in 2006.

Miles Jacobson, studio director of Sports Interactive, told GameSpot that "we strive for perfection every year, and being perfectionists we know we're never going to hit it. That's why every year when we've got a new version coming out, rather than just doing two or three new features we try and get a hundred-plus new features in, even if some of them are quite small. We're trying to take the genre to a new level each year as well, and hopefully with things like match flow and board confidence we're taking another step up."

For more details about Football Manager 2008, see GameSpot's full interview with Miles Jacobson.