Something similar happens in football games: FIFA and PES need each other to improve their features year after year and so happened with version 8 International Demo of World Soccer.
When Cristiano Ronaldo is asked about Messi, without saying that he's directly better than him he does say that that competition makes him a better player, and vice-versa. Konami's franchise was called World Soccer Winning Eleven in the USA until that year, and in Japan it's still called Winning Eleven. The Pro Evolution Soccer saga, also known as Pro or PES, didn't have the same name in all countries until 2008.
