The road to release: FM 2008

We are very happy to announce today, via the UK's News of the World paper, that the demo of Football Manager 2008 will be released next Sunday morning, the 30th September.
There will be 2 different versions of the demo for each PC and Mac, with all demo's providing half aseason of unrestricted gameplay,
The "strawberry" version of the demo includes all player pictures and logo's, with quickstarts from the world's biggest leagues, giving people a chance to try out their skills in multiple countries. This will also include multiple language translations. This demo will be available from our website at www.sigames.com.
The "vanilla" version of the demo is just English language, and features the English and Scottish leagues, with no player photo's or logo's to try and keep the size of the download down. This version will be available from www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/footballmanager2008There is still no firm release date for the game, but we hope to be able to have this in the next week or so, and will let everyone know as soon as it's set.
There will also be demos for Worldwide Soccer Manager 2008 (the US release of the game) and a brand new version, Futbol Manager 2008, a South American version of the game. Release details for both of these will follow at the same time as we provide releasedates, as they are still to be confirmed.
Whilst we're on the subject of Football Manager 2008, now is also the time to reveal new licenses for this years game.
We are very proud to announce the procurement of a license for the French Ligue de Football Professionnel, withboth the 1st & 2nd divisions covered by the license that provides real club names, logo's and kits for all the clubs in those leagues.
We also welcome back the Dutch national team to the game, which was missing from last years game.
On top of this, we have new licenses in Italy from Sampdoria and Fiorentina.
We've been pretty quiet so far this year on the game apart from the press release revealing some of the new features which can be found here along with some screenshots. As of next week,we're going to start revealing a lot more, with blogs coming daily throughout the week up until the release of the game, with lots more feature information,some in depth looks at some of the key areas of the game, and a few surprises along the way.
For now, we'll leave you with 2 other things. First off is the packshot for the UK version of Football Manager 2008, which you can find below and also the minimum and recommended specs for the game which you can also find below.
Thank you for your continued support of Sports Interactive and our games. We hope you enjoy Football Manager 2008 as much as we enjoyed making it.
Football Manager 2008 PC specs
Minimum - Windows XP/Vista.1.2Ghz Processor. 256MB Ram. DirectX8.1 compatible sound card. 4xCD Rom drive, 1024x768 32Bit display. 750MB HD space. MS compatible mouse & keyboard.
Recommended - Windows XP/Vista.AMD or Intel Dual Core 2.2Ghz processor. 1GB Ram. DirectX8.1 compatible soundcard. 4xCD Rom drive, 1024x768 32Bit display. 750MB HD space. MS compatiblemouse & keyboard.
Football Manager 2008 Macspecs
MinimumPowerMac/PowerBook: Power PC - G4 1.2Ghz, 256MB Ram, Mac OS10.3.9. 4xCD Romdrive, 1024x768 32bit display. 750MB HD Space Mac Pro/MacBook - Intel Core Duo1.8Ghz, Mac OS 10.4.4, 256MB Ram. 4xCD Rom drive, 1024x768 32bit display. 750MBHD Space
RecommendedPowerMac/PowerBook: Power PC - G5 2Ghz, Mac OS 10.4.9, 1GB Ram, 4xCD Rom drive,1024x768 32bit display. 750MB HD Space
Mac Pro/MacBook - Intel Core Duo:2Ghz, Mac OS 10.4.9, 1GB Ram, 4xCD Rom drive, 1024x768 32bit display. 750MB HDSpace