Sony and its PlayStation brand have been headline sponsors of the UEFA Champions League for many years now and to tie-in with the beginning of the group stages, the company has launched a new application for the PlayStation 4 that offers footy themed interaction for fans throughout the tournament.
The free PlayStation FC is available for download now and offers several ways to make the Champs League more interesting, even if your team isn't part of the fun. It even has tickets to the final in Milan next year, plus other prizes, for players of its included games.
So here's what the PlayStation FC app offers and why you should download it.
What is PlayStation FC?
PlayStation FC is a free portal to several UEFA Champions League activities that you can take part in through your PlayStation 4 console.
It offers clips and extended highlights of classic matches from the history of the tournament, fixtures, results and details from this year's, and a few games that earn you points whichgo towards overall leaderboard positions when compared with other players. Top the leaderboards at different times and the end and you could win great prizes.
What are the games on PlayStation FC?
The main game is tied into the official UEFA Champions League fantasy football. You get £100m to build a squad of 15 players (11 first team players and four subs) from the teams in the tournament and are awarded points after each match depending on how they performed (much like any other fantasy football game, expect only Champs League matches count).
You can make transfers through the season and your progress will go towards your overall standing in the PlayStation FC leaderboard.
Another game that will count towards your leaderboard standing is Predictor. Like its name suggests, you have to predict the scores of each of the matches throughout the group stages and beyond.
Guess correctly and you earn points towards your standing. We particularly like that you can see what scores your competitors are choosing in an aggregated social table at the side.
The final game is yet to be available and is called Top Five. We're not sure how this works exactly at the present time, but it is another prediction game where you have to guess who will be the top five performing players in upcoming matches.
So what do I need to take part in PlayStation FC?
You need a PS4, naturally, and also a UEFA account. You can create the latter in the app itself and it is free to take part.
To watch the classic UEFA Champions League matches you need to have a PlayStation Plus subscription too.
You can find out more about PlayStation FC on playstation.com.