P L A Y S T A T I O N   2

- Disney and Square's upcoming PlayStation 2 RPG Kingdom Hearts will feature even more Disney characters: Aladdin, Jafar and Genie from Aladdin; and Sally, Jack, Oogie Boogie, Dr. Finklestein and Zero from Nightmare Before Christmas. These Disney characters will show up in the Arabia town and Halloween Town in the game; in addition, there will be new Heartless enemies in these area, who are in the form of pirates in Arabia Town and zombies in Halloween Town.

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- Square's Kingdom Hearts will feature an Ability System similar to Final Fantasy IX. There is also a special action called Trinity, in which all 3 characters in the party can climb on top of each other to go to places that you normally cannot reach. The Gummi Ship enables Sora and his friends to move to different towns and areas, but you must first collect the Gummi blocks and the Designer Diagrams to assemble the ship.  You can acquire magic spells by defeating bosses, the more you use it, the more powerful it becomes.....

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- Square has released new info on their upcoming PS2 online RPG Final Fantasy XI. The Experience Point system is different from the past series, if you play solo, the experience points is based on your current level. The higher your level, the fewer experience points you will receive. If you play in a team, the experience point is based on the character with highest level in your team, and then it is equally divided among the team members. In another words, you will actually receive fewer experience points if somebody in your team has a higher level, because person with higher level will receive fewer experience points! The game will also have a Weapon Skills system, different kinds of weapon will have its own of special attacks, such as Venom for dagger or Double Blade for sword. However, weapon skills require the use of your TP Gauge energy. The TP Gauge is found under the HP and MP gauges. You can also find the Chocobos in the images below, they look quite different from the ones in FFX.

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- Here are some new screens of Capcom's Gun Survivor 3: Dino Crisis, in this game you can use many kinds of weapon to hunt the dinosaurs, it is possible to attack the dinosaurs from a distance using a scope similar to Konami's Silent Scope. There are many kinds of stages in the game, including urban city, desert, jungle, mid-air, and mountains. Gun Survivor 3: Dino Crisis is scheduled for release in Japan in June.

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- Sun Denshi announced that they will be shifting the software and accessories development focus from telecommunication and mobile phone equipment to PlayStation 2 this year. Sun Denshi's past works include a number of typing and pachinko game titles for PlayStation 2.

- NTT-Broadband announced that they will be selling the Broadband Navigator software for PlayStation 2, a broadband internet browser software for PS2 which is fully compatible with Sony's PS2BB, and it also support the PS2 HDD, users can store digital music and other internet content to the hard drive. Broadband Navigator will be sold for 700 yen. It is a good news for those who have purchased a PS2 HDD.

- Yahoo announced they have established a new Yahoo BB for PlayStation 2 service in Japan, to offer broadband internet service for PlayStation 2 users. At present, the sales time is scheduled sometimes in April, and price are still undecided.

- "Microsoft points a spear toward Sony", Yahoo reported that Sony was forced to remove all the PlayStation 2 related products at the German Trade Fair on the 18th. The PlayStation 2 has been exhibited in this IT Trade Fair for two years, but Sony was advised to remove all aspects of PS2 for the first time in the German Trade Fair. The reason is that Microsoft has made a severe request to the trade fair community that amusement equipment and game machine cannot be exhibited in the trade fair. The removal of PS2 has disappointed the attendants who were looking forward to test out the latest PlayStation 2 games and products. Sony was unable to comment for the report.

- Sony Computer Entertainment announced that the service for the PS2 game Check i-TV will be ended on June 30. In this game users can submit contributions to the server with cellular phones. Sony will stop accepting new registrations for the game after May 31.

- News Recap: Sony has made some comments on the next installment of Gran Turismo. GT Online will be a part of Gran Turismo 4, GT4 will be playable both online and offline, the graphic quality will be further improved, and this will be the last Gran Turismo title for PS2. Before the release of GT4, the developer will release two other titles for PS2, plus a South Korean version of Gran Turismo Concepts.

A R C A D E   /   M U L T I

- Namco is expected to report a large increase in profit this year, due to a large amount of new software to be released for all major platforms. Namco is planning to release a total of 60 titles by the end of March 2003, increased all the way from the previously announced 38 titles. Namco is expected to sell 11.5 million units of software, and the expected ordinary profit is increased by 80.5% to 7.4 billion yen, expected profit for each share is increased by 97.6% to 75.3 yen.

- Konami announced they will release Pop n' Music 8 in arcade this May, the charge per game is 200 yen. This time the game will feature 50 new tunes from various popular TV drama and cartoon series.

H A N D H E L D S

- Bandai announced that they will reinforce the sales target of WonderSwan Color to school children in 2002. Bandai is developing 10 or more new WonderSwan Color titles which are aiming for the low age group, including several titles based on popular TV Anime and manga series. Bandai has also clarified that Square will continue to supply game software for WonderSwan Color in the future, after Square's announcement to develop for GameBoy Advance earlier this month. Bandai expects the accumulated sales of WonderSwan Color to expand from 1.6 million units to 2 million units by the end of the year.

- Nintendo of America will release a new Platinum color model of GameBoy Advance at the GBA sale anniversary on June 3, for $79.95. Nintendo has sold over 5 million units of GBA in US for less than one year, and around 200 titles will be available for GBA by June 2002.