- December 13, 2001 -

- Namco, Nintendo, Square and Sega were honored at the Agency of Cultural Affairs Media Art Festival in Japan on December. Nintendo's GameCube title Pikmin has won the Excellent Prize from the Game Industry Interactive Digital Art section. Namco's CG work Anjyu has won the Grand Prix in Non-Interactive Digital Art section. Square's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Sega's Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 have both acquired the Examination Committee Special Prizes.

Namco's CG work Anjyu

- Sega announced the release date of their PlayStation 2 music action game Space Channel 5 Part 2, the game is scheduled to release in Japan on February 14, for 6800 yen. A Limited Edition will be released on the same day, which includes a specially made Kawaii Headphone, which is in space silver color. Space Channel 5 Part 2 will have a 2 player cooperative mode and battle mode, there will be over 120 characters in the game.

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- UNCONFIRMED: The Japanese Pachinko company Playmore has acquired all of SNK's Intellectual properties on November 30, and they are planning to establish a new subsidiary company named SNK NeoGeo, to continue the development of SNK-brand game software. Playmore has also contracted with Korean developer Mega Enterprise on December 4, to collaborate on creating SNK NeoGeo Korea, which will become the international headquarter of SNK NeoGeo

- Mega Enterprise's president Sang Min Lee will temporary take the seat as the president of SNK NeoGeo Korea, and a new business plan will be announced in January 2002. One of SNK NeoGeo Korea's first task is to take action against piracy and the flood of illegal products that claimed to hold SNK product rights, such as numerous illegal game boards, and NeoGeo ROM files spread across the Internet. (Source: Madman's Cafe, Game Chosun)

- UNCONFIRMED: Sun Amusement will be publishing two new SNK arcade titles sometimes next spring, they are temporary named Metal Slug and Samurai Spirits.