Champ Man 5 dated on PS2 and Xbox

Eidos has revealed that Championship Manager 5 will be released on PS2 and Xbox on 13th May 2005, just in time for the close of the football season and, by curious quirk of coincidence, just in time for most reviewers in the UK not to have time to review it before flying off to E3.

Not that we're suggesting there's anything deliberate in that.

The PS2 and Xbox version of the game - which was developed for the PC by Beautiful Game Studios and ported to consoles by Gusto Games - arguably have a better chance of making an impact on the genre, as Sports Interactive's market-leading Football Manager franchise is PC exclusive.

Upon its release earlier this year, the PC version was met with a mixed response. Some didn't have much of a problem with it, while others felt that - predictably - its year or so in development simply wasn't enough time to turn out a management game with as much depth or authenticity as Sports Interactive's efforts. Indeed, many reviewers felt that it was just a reasonable facsimile of the last CM title Eidos created - albeit one where West Brom and Norwich were capable of climbing out of the Premiership relegation zone for longer than a few hours.

You can read Kristan's review of the PC version here.

Eidos will of course be hoping that CM5 can reap the benefits of its well-timed release date on console. We'll let you know what we think of it just as soon as we can.

Speaking of football, incidentally, COME ON YOU REDS!!