Following in the footsteps of Football Manager 2008, Sports Interactive has revealed the next installment to be released for the PSP, PC, and Mac OS X platforms. Football Manager 2009 (and its accompanying Football Manager Handheld 2009 for the PSP) will be arriving on November 14. Read more for details and an in-depth video walkthrough with the devs.

Think you've got what it takes to handle your very own premier soccer team? We've just picked up word that Football Manager Handheld 2008 for the Sony PSP has now gone gold, and will be releasing at the end of this month.

The game will test your organizational skills for Europe's favorite sport, with this latest release offering up several new features, such as reserve squads. More information about Football Manager Handheld 2008's upcoming release is available in the full article. 

Sega Europe Ltd. just sent out a press release saying that it has teamed up with development studio Sports Interactive to bring PlayStation Portable owners the latest iteration in the Football Manager series of video games, Football Manager Handheld 2008. It is expected to ship this Christmas.

Aside from the graphical enhancements that come with the new game, Football Manager 2008 will sport new skin and layout that should provide players better navigation. Tactics can now be customized and be shared with other users while the match engine was optimized to limit waiting and loading times.

Aside from the already mentioned, Football Manager Handheld 2008 will also let players add a reserve squad. Sports Interactive Studio Director Miles Jacobson had this to say:

When we first started on the quest for a real pick up and play football management game, we didn't even believe ourselves that the game would be able to have the depth that is does, whilst still being so much fun to play in bite size chunks, or on long journeys and holidays.

While waiting for the actual release date, just take a look at the first batch of screenshots released for the title.

We're just letting the gamers there who own a copy of Football Manager: 2007 that something's cooking at the home site. And if you're wondering which console's getting new goodies this Christmas, it's for the PSP, Xbox 360, Mac and the PC. The main site's just announced updates relating to these consoles, and to give you guys a brief breakdown:

• PC and Mac: The patch 7.0.1 for your copy of the games are now ready for downloading.
• Tutorial videos: Just getting started? The site's now hosting several videos to help you guys along, and all will be narrated by Sports Interactive's Mike Jacobson. There are 13 video in total: Nine for the PC/Mac, and 4 for the Xbox 360 crowd.
• PSP: The guys with the portable get two new Football Manager Handheld 2007 wall papers over at the site. Just check around - they're there.

There's more site updates to come as Christmas kicks in, so keep your eyes peeled. Season's greetings, guys.

It's coming home. Football's coming home. Sports Interactive's Football Manager 2007 is out on PC and Mac, and it's at the top of both the all-format and PC charts in the UK. And according to their press release, it's "becoming the third fastest selling PC [game] ever." They're talking UK charts, we suppose, but that's a big accomplishment (more about how the game is doing in the U.S. and internationally later).

PSP and 360. As for Football Manager Handheld 2007 for PSP and Football Manager 2007 for the Xbox 360, Sega has shared the release date of December 1, 2006 for both. Handheld for the PSP has international management and multiple scouts and lots of new leagues to choose from (including Australian and Portuguese leagues). Manager for the Xbox 360 has Xbox Live Vision camera support and a Fantasy Draft mode - not to mention 50 achievements to challenge everybody.

This game has been a success story. Many Americans really aren't into "soccer", but for the rest of the world, "football" or "futbol" or whatever is the game of the world - much like football's World Cup is the "cup of life" when journalists are feeling poetic or when your mates have just finished singing a round of "Three Lions on a shirt Jules Rimet still gleaming..."

Strong sales. On Amazon.com, Sega of America's U.S. and Canadian version (Worldwide Soccer Manager 2007) is currently number eight on the top 10 best sellers for PC (it's sometimes higher on the list). And that's at Amazon.com - so it gives us an idea of how the game is selling (Amazon.com is "Amazon U.S." if you're looking at it from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.co.jp, but Amazon.com is really kind of like "Amazon for the whole world" because it's Amazon.com that many people go to if they're not in the UK, Japan, or those other countries with "local" Amazons). In Amazon.co.uk, the game's been hovering around the top three slots.

High praise. With the game being called "a revelation" by a EuroGamer writer (giving it a 9/10 score), an IGN UK writer warns you to "be prepared for a serious lack of social life after it's installed on your hard drive" (and gives it a 9.3/10). The game also got 4/5 from "Maxim" and 5/5 from both "The Times" and the "Sunday Times."

Remember Deep Fried Entertainment? They were formed by a bunch of former EA employees who wanted to strike out on their own, and design games for handhelds. Last time we talked about them - and that was back in August of 2005 - we noted their experience with the Need for Speed series, and were guessing that "a racer could be on the cards for Deep Fried's debut."

Well, cut one year later, and we're still guessing, but Deep Fried's debut is starting to look likely. You see, they've recently signed a deal with Sega to develop PSP titles for the home of Sonic. Ah, and there's the kicker. These same ex-EA employees worked for Black Box Games before the outfit was purchased by EA. Black Box was also responsible for Sega titles like Sega Soccer Slam and NHL 2K. It's a small world after all.

Sega's recently been acquiring or teaming up with Western studios and development teams, such as Sports Interactive (Football Manager) and Monolith Productions.

Good news for those who've been wanting to hear more updates about the Football Manager 2007 by Sports Interactive (SI). The game, which will be released for the PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and PSP,  have added features that allow further access to the game's settings. So, now you can customize the games better whether you are a new or advanced user. The multi-core support and hyper-threading have optimized the game so much that FM 2007 now supports a wider range of hardware specifications.

"We've added multiple database support into the game, so there's no need to wipe over older databases, meaning that if you try an unofficial update to the game and it doesn't work, you can easily switch back to the original database. Or choose to start a new game with data from the first transfer window, or the second window..." says SI.

Some of the features include:

• handy menu wizards for newcomers
• new advanced game modes
• ability to have dual nationalities for managers
• random team selection
• shift-select and change multiple players in the improved interface

Football Manager 2007 is due out in November and SI plans to release the game's official data update by February 2007.