Sega and Sports Interactive have announced that Football Manager 2023 Console for PS5 will not launch on 8th November, as had originally been planned. All other versions of Football Manager 2023, across Xbox, Switch, PC, iOS and Android will be launching as previously announced.
Because of the delay and an inability to set a new date, all digital pre-orders via the PlayStation Store have been cancelled and a refund issued.
So why has FM23 on PS5 been singled out? Per the press release, this is down to “unforeseen complications which have arisen during the submissions and approvals process.”
Given the complexities of certification, this could be pretty much anything. Even something as seemingly inconsequential as having ABXY button inputs listed somewhere instead of the PlayStation symbols. Such a misstep would be surprising given Sports Interactive and Sega’s experience, but they’ve clearly not been able to resolve it in time for next week, even with promises for change in a day one update.
Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive’s Studio Director, said: “We’re devastated by this outcome, which we have worked tirelessly with our partners for a number of weeks to try to address. It was especially difficult to make the decision to delay, as it involves holding back a great game which a number of talented people within SI have worked tremendously hard on for quite some time. We will continue to do everything in our power to get this game into the hands of PS5 gamers as soon as we can.”
Football Manager was meant to debut on PlayStation for the first time this year, following the famously frank explanation that the game was an Xbox exclusive back in 2020 because Xbox sent them dev kits and Sony didn’t. “To make games for a platform, you need a dev kit,” Jacobson explained at the time. “To get a dev kit, the platform holder has to want the game on the platform. We spoke with Sony, we have no dev kits. We spoke with Microsoft, they sent them to us.”
Here’s hoping they can resolve the submission snag as soon as possible.
Source: press release
