P L A Y S T A T I O N   2  /   P S O N E

- Sega's PlayStation 2 fighting game Virtua Fighter 4 has received a platinum score in Japanese magazine review, the game has received a score of 37 / 40 (9, 9, 9, 10). The PS2 port of the game will feature the new Ver. C characters, with adjustments in character balance and new moves not found in the arcade version.

- Namco announced a new PlayStation 2 baseball game called Heatchu Professional Baseball 2002, which is scheduled for release in Japan on April 18, for 6800 yen. The game is co-developed with Fuji TV Network, the camera angles and the real time commentary are based on the live shows on the TV network. In addition, the game features realistic motion capture animation like Square's Gekikuukan Pro Baseball. Namco is planning to make this game into a series, beside its popular World Stadium series, they are aiming to ship 200,000 units initially, and aiming to sell 500,000 units in total. A System 246 arcade version of the game is also scheduled for release by the end of March.

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- Agetec will release From Software's PS2 RPG King's Field IV in US this March, under a new name, King's Field: The Ancient City.

G A M E C U B E

- Reuters reported that Nintendo of Japan is considering to move the production line of GameCube from Japan to China, to further pushing down the manufacture cost and lower the retail price of the console.

- UNCONFIRMED: Capcom's Biohazard remake for GameCube will be shipping in 2 mini-DVDs, because the game will feature over 1.5GB of program data, pre-rendered videos, backgrounds and music tracks.

A R C A D E   /   M U L T I

- Namco announced that Soul Calibur 2 will be playable at the upcoming AOU 2002 Amusement Expo in Japan on February 22 and 23, at Makuhari hall in Tokyo Japan.

- Infogrames is planning to release Dragonball Z game titles for GameBoy Advance, GameCube, PlayStation 2 and XBox. The GameBoy Advance version will be released first in May, it will be a fighting RPG game. The PlayStation 2 version of Dragonball Z is scheduled for release this fall, which will be an action adventure RPG with over 30 characters from the cartoon series. A GameCube version of Dragonball Z is planned for a 2003 release, which will be similar to the PS2 version, and it will be linkable with the GBA version of the game. Lastly, both XBox and PC will receive an online version of Dragonball Z in 2003.