Pro Evolution Soccer 5

Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (Winning Eleven 9 in Japan and World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 in the US) was released in October 2005 and featured John Terry and Thierry Henry on the cover. The improvements are mainly tweaks to the gameplay engine, while online play finally made it to the PlayStation 2 version. The game was perceived as much harder by fans, with a very punishing defense AI making it harder to score. Some players have pointed out inconsistencies in the star difficulty rating, such as 3 star mode being harder to beat than 6 star due to its more defensive nature, but in general scoring is harder. Referees are very fussy over decisions, awarding free kicks for very negligible challenges. There are various new club licenses present, including Arsenal,Celtic,Chelsea,Rangers and a few other European clubs, as well as the full Dutch, Spanish and Italian Leagues. Pro Evolution Soccer 5 was victim of the infamous empty stadium glitch, in which when playing a game, no crowds are present in the stands although they are present during cut-scenes. There are fan-made mods which address this in the PC version, although no official patch was released. Official PlayStation 2 Magazine UK gave it a perfect 10/10 score.

Pro Evolution Soccer 5 was released for Xbox, Windows and PS2, all online enabled. A PSP version was released, but with stripped down features, such as no Master League, no commentary, only one stadium and limitations in the editor, and that's also because of the limitations to the UMD. The PSP version featured Wi-fi play, and the gameplay was faster and more “pin-ball like” in comparison to its console siblings, but it did not receive the same acclaim as the mainstream console/PC versions.