that casual gamers always follow the leaders seems logical but what is the reason which makes the leaders say a average game is lightyears better than the game which delivers the best footballing experience game wise.
if even they get sucked up into the hype it doesn't make them leaders does it?
leaders make up their own minds and can give you arguments enough why they choose something,so unless their is money involved why would they play the inferior product and praise it too?
You're right, the leader types don't judge the final product from the hype. Obviously they can get into the pre release hype because they want it to be good. But if the game doesn't deliver they won't switch back to PES just because of the hype that builds up before the release.
There were a lot of leader types that switched to FIFA 08 even if the hype was very low and it didn't get that good reviews. PES was still the game that was "cool to like" or "the game to like if you know anything about football", because like I said the casual masses lags behind.
If you went to different forums that didn't have anything to do with PES or FIFA you would only see people talk good about PES even up to early FIFA 09. Then you could see the transition when finally the lagging behind was done, and now 90% rate FIFA as the cool game and everyone that talk good about PES get thumbs down.
Konami has to get the leader types back by giving them what they want, and that is a more realistic experience than FIFA. However in today's world I guess online plays a major part for a lot of leader types too. If Konami makes a good game but still can't match FIFA Clubs (10 vs 10) then I think you'd still have plenty leader types sticking with FIFA (but not the majority).
Konami does have a good advantage still I think because the leader types have been playing PES for a long time and only played FIFA for 2-3 years. So even if leader types generally isn't fanboys, since they switch to the best game, they obviously still have fond memories of the PES series and probably feel a bit "like home" when playing it.
I they can bring back good response times coupled with smoother animations (IK based) then I think they've gone a long way by "only" doing that. Add to that a proper collision system and make the ball completely free again (in PES 2010 it moves around to suit the animations instead of players ice skating to the ball) and maybe let us have more control over the length and direction of passes (but not manual as FIFA has because it removes individuality).
The main reason that made me go back to PES even if I don't really like PES 2010 is the chaotic events that happens all the time in PES (and real life). Any player close to the ball can attack it and the keeper's saves are not scripted at all so you never know what will happen. I love that feeling, and this doesn't exist in FIFA at all because they only allow 1 player from each team to attack the ball and they got super scripted keepers that makes the same saves over and over again.
PES rightfully 'lost' the leaders witht he dire game that was PES 2008, what was intresting was that meanwhile EA served up what it's clearly still their best football games to date wih FIFA 08 an EURO 2008.
