The North American release of Phantasy Star Portable is less than a week away. In celebration, a special launch event will be held in Phantasy Star Universe on March 6! Vivienne, a new lead story character of PSP, will be making appearances in Clyez City throughout the day. She needs your help to track down Helga Neumann, a suspected terrorist! Team up with your friends, locate Vivienne, and track down Helga using the clues given to you by your new partner. This event will run multiple times throughout the day, and after the event has been completed successfully, all participants will be given a unique phrase to say which will reward them with a special weapon! Below is a list of the times the event will be occurring on each server. Remember! The times listed are all PST, Friday, March 6! (If you need assistance converting from PST to your time zone, please reference this site.)

• 10:00a.m. - 11:00a.m. PST (PC/PS2)
• 11:00a.m. - 12:00p.m. PST (Xbox 360)
• 1:00p.m. - 2:00p.m. PST (PC/PS2)
• 2:00p.m. - 3:00p.m. PST (Xbox 360)
• 4:00p.m. - 5:00p.m. PST (PC/PS2)
• 5:00p.m. - 6:00p.m. PST (Xbox 360)
• 6:15p.m. - 7:00p.m. PST (PC/PS2)
• 7:00p.m. - 7:45p.m. PST (Xbox 360)

For complete details, please see the official announcement. Thanks to RubyEclipse for the heads up!

Update: A few modifications have been made to this event. First, one more time slot has been added to each server to help accommodate more players. Second, anyone who says the phrase "Phantasy Star Portable Day" (just as it is typed here, but without the quotes) at any point on March 6 (12:00a.m. - 11:59p.m. PST) will receive a Moatoob Collectible room decoration at a later date. And finally, anyone who participates in at least one successful run of the event (i.e. Vivienne is successful in catching up to Helga), all participants of that run will be given a unique phrase to say which will reward them with a Real Hand Gun+ at a later date.

With the end of the Winter Mission Carnival fast approaching, talk of the next major event has been increasing steadily. To help get the ball rolling on this, SonicTeam are giving the Phantasy Star Universe community the opportunity to name this upcoming event! These are the four options:

• Dark Erosion
• Shred the Darkness
• Shadows of Gurhal
• Guardians of the Light

You can cast your vote over at the official forum. The winner will be announced on Monday, February 23!

Update: It's official. The name of the next major event will be Shred the Darkness!

The update page for this week has been posted. Here are the changes coming this Friday:

• Removal of Winter lobbies
• Addition of Valentine's Day lobbies (available until March 12th)
• Addition of items to Crystal Central (available until February 26th)
• Rerelease of World of Illusion ? with 11th stage added (available until February 26th)
• Rerelease of World of Illusion ? with 11th stage added (available until February 26th)

The Winter Mission Carnival is scheduled to close by the end of this month, however certain missions will return afterwards to be made available permanently (albeit modified).

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Update:*The JP 360 update page has been posted. Also included in this update will be a Casino rotation (Goth -> Modern). The Valentine's Day lobbies are slated to run until March 12th.

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Update:*An extension has been announced for the Winter Mission Carnival. The last full day will now be March 5th.

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Update: Notifications that players are receiving chances at rare missions are now displaying.

According to GM Edward as well as the Japanese Xbox 360 site, there will be changes to the current event coming this Friday. These are as follows:

• Removal of World of Illusion ? (will be available again on February 20th)
• Addition of World of Illusion ? (available until February 26th)
• Addition of Thunderburst Duel (available until February 26th)
• Addition of Panther Blitz (available until February 26th)
• Addition of items to Crystal Central (available until February 26th)

There will also be a Casino rotation on this date (Berry/Sweet to Goth).

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Discussion is taking place here.

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Update: The English update page has been posted*here. *You can find more details about the new missions on this page.

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Update: Charged Puzzle has been updated with new areas.

Starting on January 23rd, a new Carnival event will be available on the third floor of Guardian Colony in the area beside the Club. Known as the "Lightning Carnival" in Japan, this event will kick off with the release two new missions! The first mission is known as "Charged Puzzle" (C to S Rank). In it, players must collect plasma balls and use them to complete a picture puzzle. The picture you create will affect the outcome for the mission. In addition, players will be able to collect Zon Fragments and in this mission. These will be used in an upcoming item trade-in mission. The second mission is known as "World of Illusion" Alpha." This is a gauntlet type mission with special rules. Can your party make it to the end to collect the best rare items? Be sure to save up your Zon Fragments and Zonspheres so you can attempt this mission!

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More missions will be released as the event unfolds. You can share your thoughts in this forum thread.

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Update: According to the official Japanese 360 homepage, the Carnival will last for five weeks (ending on February 26th).

As additional compensation for the recent server rollbacks, players will be able to receive 10 silver coins per day from the Casino from January 23rd until February 6th. Players should take advantage of this opportunity to save up big-ticket items like the King's Chair.

The official Japanese Xbox 360 site was update this morning with details on this Friday's content update to the local servers. Here's what all we can expect after the servers come back up from maintenance this Friday.

• Three new GUARDIANS types are being released: Fighmaster, Gunmaster and Masterforce.
• With the new types, certain photon arts will be able to reach LV50!
• Wartechers, Fortetechers and Acrotechers will each receive a ten level boost to their current support TECHNIC cap. Guntechers' attack TECHNIC cap will increase from LV20 to LV30.
• The sixth chapter of Episode 3 will make its debut.
• Christmas makes its return, bringing with it the rare Rappy Noel!
• NPC Hyuga Ryght will have some adjustments made to his AI.

Special thanks to Marshall Banana for the news tip. You can join in the discussion of this exciting update over at the forum!

This Friday (December 19th), the Phashion Group will be hosting a player-run Casino Event on the PC/Playstation 2 servers. Players will have the opportunity to participate in a large number of unique mini-games. Winners will then have the opportunity to earn some wonderful real-life and in-game prizes. For a full prize-list and details of the contest, be sure to check out Arika's thread. The event is scheduled to run from 4:30 pm (Eastern Standard Time) to 7:30 pm. Sega GMs will also be present to chat and hand out prizes.

If you are online during that time period, be sure to stop by and participate!



Update: A website for the event has been opened!

First details on the future expansion of PSU: Ambition of the Illuminus have been revealed! Thanks to Japanese fan site Shougai PSO and magazine Dengeki PlayStation, we are pleased to share the following bits of information on this developing story.

• It has not been confirmed yet if this "addition" will be considered a true expansion or not.
• The method of release has not been confirmed yet. Further details will be revealed in a future issue of Dengeki PlayStation.
• There will be some gameplay modifications made to help make the game more enjoyable. The battle system has been confirmed as one recipient of such changes.
• Many new weapons are planned for the addition, including some from Phantasy Star Portable.

We expect further details to be released in the coming months. In the meantime, join in our discussion of this news over at the message board!