Sports Interactive

Sports Interactive is a computer games development company currently based in Old Street, Central London and owned by the Japanese software and video game company Sega. It is the developer of the popular games Football Manager, NHL Eastside Hockey Manager and Championship Manager Quiz, and is the former developer of Championship Manager.

Each release of Championship Manager has traditionally been one of the fastest selling PC games in the UK with Championship Manager 4 the fastest of all time.

Founded by Paul Collyer and Oliver Collyer, the company is commonly abbreviated to "SI" amongst fans of their games.In 2003, it was announced Sports Interactive would no longer develop games under the brand Championship Manager as this was owned by publisher Eidos Interactive. Instead on 12th February 2004 it was announced that Sports Interactive had signed a publishing deal with Sega and would produce its new football management games under the self-owned brand of Football Manager.

Sports Interactive have had a relationship with AFC Wimbledon since the club's formation: Championship Manager 01-02 contains a pro-AFC Wimbledon message occasionally visible at start-up (along with a similarly rare but now rather dated "Save Chip!" message), and they are currently AFC Wimbledon's main sponsors, with their logo appearing on the team strip.

In 2004, Sports Interactive announced the a deal to help develop Markus Heinsohn's Out of the Park Baseball.

On April 4 2006 it was announced that Sega Holdings Europe Ltd, holding company for Sports Interactive's publishers Sega, had acquired Sports Interactive, yet despite worries amongst fans, the effects of the takeover have had little to no effect on the daily operations of Sports Interactive.

On January 1 2007 Sports Interactive announced that they were intending to begin work on a new game. The only detail revealed has stated that the game will be football-based, however what aspect of the game to be captured has yet to be disclosed.

On April 20 2007, Sports Interactive announced the release of a "brand new massively multiplayer online football management game" entitled "Football Manager Live" [ [http://www.footballmanagerlive.com/en/article/89/1526.html Announcement of game] ] similar to that of Football Manager 2007, but, as the name suggests, played completely online by up to 1000 people within any "gameworld" of which there will be multiple. The game was originally announced to be released in March 2008 but this date has passed and there is currently no date for the game to be released. The original release date was announced nearly a year in advance in order for the Sports Interactive team to perform long term beta testing. [ [http://community.sigames.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2342058213/m/4182069413 Football Manager Live Question and Answer session] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.sigames.com Official Website]
* [http://community.sigames.com Official Forums]