Konami Digital Entertainment Co., Ltd. is pleased to announce it has launched special websites for the eFootball Winning Eleven and Professional Baseball Spirits A categories of the Inter-Prefectural Esports Championship 2021 MIE, a competition that is part of the Culture Programs of the 76th National Sports Festival: Mie Tokowaka Kokutai and the 21st National Para Sports Festival: Mie Tokowaka Taikai.
The eFootball Winning Eleven Category, like last year’s competition in Kagoshima, is made up of the High School Division and the Open Division (no age restriction). The teams that emerge victorious in the prefectural qualifying round will move on to the regional tournaments. The winners there, plus Team Mie, will then meet at the main tournament. Each team will have two players, and they will play two 1-vs-1 matches each. The team with the higher combined score will be the winner. Players will be able to register for the competition (starting Thursday, April 15 at 15:00) on the website unveiled today.
This year marks the first time mobile game “Professional Baseball Spirits A” will appear as a competition title. This category*1 will decide the number one student baseball duo in Japan. Teams of two players will battle it out in regional qualifiers, with the winners advancing to the national finals in October. Players can enter from June to July. Further details will be announced around mid-May, both on the website unveiled today and in the game app itself.
Konami Digital Entertainment will continue to bring fun and exciting experiences to competitors and spectators alike through its esports initiatives.
eFootball Winning Eleven Category website
“Professional Baseball Spirits A” Category website
About KONAMI's esports initiatives
For the Winning Eleven series, we have held a world championship since 2001, and from March to July 2019, in partnership with Japan Professional Football League (J.League), we held the eJ.League Winning Eleven 2019 Season, which utilized mobile game "Winning Eleven 2019" as its competition title. The console titles continue to gather attention as esports titles, including being featured in exhibition matches at the 18th Asian Games Jakarta-Palembang, and being included as part of the Culture Program at the 74th National Sports Festival of Japan, Iki-iki Ibaraki Yume Kokutai.
For the Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu series, we have held a Japanese championship since 2016. In 2018, we teamed up with Nippon Professional Baseball to create a new form of pro baseball – the eBASEBALL Pro League. The series was also featured as part of the National Sports Festival of Japan's Culture Program for the first time at 2017's Egao Tsunagu Ehime Kokutai (72nd National Sports Festival). It has since appeared at both 2018's Fukui Shiawase Genki Kokutai (73rd National Sports Festival) and 2019's Iki-iki Ibaraki Yume Kokutai (74th National Sports Festival).
For the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, we have held a world championship since 2003. Beginning in 2017, we added mobile game "Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links" to the championship, which has become an ever-growing event in the esports calendar.
*1 Originally, “Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu” was going to be the competition title for this category. However, with the potential challenges that COVID-19 posed for holding offline competition (including the qualifying round), the decision was made to switch to an online format in order to allow more players to participate. As a result, the competition title has been changed to “Professional Baseball Spirits A.”