If it's not real then the whole press release is fake and I think it would be a huge waste of time for anyone to have written up a press release and made this pic, then sent it to all the right people to get it picked up by WENB, etc...
If it were fake, why didn't they include something more shocking in the press release to go with it?
No. It's real, and likely an in-game screen, but maybe at a higher res/poly-count.
One thing to note is that as graphics get better in general I think it actually gets more difficult for designers to get the players to look like their real life counterparts. In PES 2, all that was needed was to add a bald patch and you think the player model looks exactly like Zidane (because you imagine what's missing). Now, every detail needs to be spot-on, from different postions and angles and also when the player has different facial expressions. It's likely that in some ways the players may seem to resemble the real-life counterparts even less in 2010, but it seems like the overal graphics are getting much better.
Makes sense but I hope it doesn't happens with Pro Evo 2010.
I mean, FIFA looks great from "Wide" View angles, but the in-game faces are embarrassing... I know graphics aren't The priority, but if there's one thing that PES09 haves over FIFA09: the Faces.
And Konami knows this, so My Guess is that yeah "overall graphics are getting much better" -but- I don't think player Faces will "resemble the real-life counterparts even less in 2010".
There was a lot of feedback about PES09, most of it complained about the unplayable Online and the arcade-like movements... but fans always mentioned a few positives, and one of the Top Positives about PES09 is "player faces".
FIFA09 looks better from "Wide" angles -whereas- PES09 looks better from closer perspectives, because the players actually have realistic-looking faces.
Logically Konami will look to improve how their game "looks" from afar, but I don't think they will risk losing their appealing "player faces".