New FIFA soccer game debuts Tuesday, Guinness celebrates

Tuesday, one of the most popular sports videogame series renews with 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

The Guinness World Records 2010 Gamer's Edition (yes there is a "world book" for videogaming) has highlighted some soccer records.

• Best-Selling Soccer Franchise: FIFA (EA, 1993 to present) EA has shipped more than 65 million copies, well ahead of Konami's PES (48 million). PES, however, debuted in 2001, eight years after FIFA.
• Largest Multiplayer Sports Game: FIFA 09 (EA, 2008) Allowing up to 20 gamers to play a match together, EA's FIFA 09 can accommodate more players than any other sports game. In online 10-versus-10 matches, each player assumes one of the 10 outfield positions on his team and plays there for the duration of the game. The only player not available is the goalkeeper.
• Fastest-Selling Title in the FIFA Series: FIFA 09 (EA, 2008) EA's FIFA 09 sold 1.2 million copies in the game's first week of release in October 2008.
• First Videogame to be Licensed by a Soccer Club for Recruiting Purposes: Football Manager 2009 (SEGA, 2008) In November 2008, the English Premier League's Everton Football Club signed a deal with game developer Sports Interactive to make use of the Football Manager 2009 database. Everton wanted to use the database to help with the scouting of new players, making the game the first to be officially used by a major soccer club for recruiting purposes.
• Most Real-Life Players to Appear in a Sports Game: Football Manager 2009 (SEGA, 2008) When Sports Interactive and SEGA released Football Manager 2009in November 2008, it featured over 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and at least 370,000 players and staff from around the world. Sports Interactive believes it has accurately predicted the rise of several world soccer stars, including Argentinean Lionel Messi.
• Longest-Running Soccer Series: Championship Manager (Eidos, 1992 to present) Management-focused soccer game Championship Manager has enjoyed an unbroken run of annual updates since its first release on September 1, 1992, a year before EA launched the FIFA series.
• First Soccer Game to Use the "Stadium" Viewpoint: NASL Soccer (Mattel Electronics, 1982) The first soccer videogame to offer a side-on, or "stadium", viewpoint was Mattel's pioneering NASL Soccer, which arrived on the Atari 2600 in 1982. This viewpoint has since become the default perspective for many of the leading action-focused soccer games, including the two genre-defining series FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer.