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    by Published on Jan 31, 2007 08:26 PM
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    Online auction giant Ebay has reportedly banned auctions containing virtual game goods such as characters, currency, weapons, attire and accounts (also referred to as RMTs, or real-money trades). The decision to ban auctions for virtual property, and delist existing auctions for such items was confirmed again on Monday of this week. The change is said to effect all games, with the only exception appearing to be the virtual world "Second Life".

    What exactly does this mean for Phantasy Star Universe, or online games in general? Well, it will become much harder for individuals to sell virtual goods, as Ebay was the primary outlet for these sales. Instead, 3rd party companies that specialize in RMTs may inherit much of the attention that Ebay was getting from interested buyers. Only time will tell what kind of effect this will have in the long run (or what kind of monster might be created from the huge shift in the virtual market). In the short term, we should see a significant drop in the sale of virtual goods for Phantasy Star Universe, since the virtual trading companies have not payed much attention to it.

    Feel free to drop by the forums, where a discussion of this news is already taking place. Thanks to Parn for the story!

    2 Comments
    by Published on May 9, 2006 02:52 AM
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    SEGA® of America, Inc. and SEGA® Europe, Ltd. today announced a new partnership with PROPE, Ltd., a new video game development studio based in Tokyo, Japan. PROPE, Ltd. will develop original content for the next generation consoles.

    Effective June 1, 2006, Mr. Naka will leave his post as Creative Officer for Research and Development at SEGA Corporation and will become CEO and President of PROPE, Ltd. Mr. Naka has been the creative force behind such SEGA brands as Sonic The Hedgehog and Phantasy Star. SEGA will make a 10% investment in PROPE, Ltd. and will be the company's exclusive global publisher. This landmark announcement between SEGA and Mr. Naka is the first arrangement to emerge from SEGA's Game Creator Independence Program, which will be organized to promote entrepreneurial business spin-offs with its internal development talent.

    "We named our company PROPE in the hopes of bringing game entertainment much closer to users, establishing closer ties between users and us, and creating near future entertainment," said Yuji Naka, CEO and President of PROPE, Ltd. "I am looking forward to the challenge of embarking on this new entrepreneurial venture supported by such a powerful global publisher as SEGA."

    "Mr. Naka is an incredible industry visionary and as SEGA continues to align itself with top development talent, we are extremely excited to partner with PROPE." said Naoya Tsurumi, Chief Executive Officer, SEGA of America, Inc. and SEGA Europe, Ltd.

    The agreement is the latest in a string of similar announcements from SEGA that underscore the company's increased emphasis on external content development. Previously, SEGA announced partnerships with developers Obsidian Entertainment, Silicon Knights, Bizarre Creations, Monolith Productions (Condemned: Criminal Origins™), and Pseudo Interactive (Full Auto™). SEGA also acquired development powerhouse The Creative Assembly (Total War series) in 2005 as well as US developer Secret Level and UK based studio, Sports Interactive in 2006.

    "PROPE" (pronounced "pro-pe") is a Latin word which means "beside" and "near" future. Future information for PROPE, Ltd. will be announced on their website at http://prope.jp

    5 Comments
    by Published on Apr 24, 2006 12:54 AM
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    Our news and video staff contributor, Jonathan_F, recently got interviewed by Gamertag Radio on Phantasy Star Universe. In this podcast, Gamertag Radio discusses PSU and reflects back on PSO. You can directly download the podcast here, and subscribe here.
    "This fall 2006 Phantasy Star Universe will be coming out for the Xbox 360 and some of the GTR staff members are very excited about this news. We had the chance to interview one of the staff members from one of my favorite sites PSO-World.com & Phantasystarmonthly.com. He had the chance to play the beta version of the PC and gave us more information how this game will be offline and online, the difference from past games and the story.

    We talked about our "favorite platform" (this is a joke), & what's up with Japan making mistakes with 99 Nights display at a local store. E3 coverage coming soon and remember to subscribe on Itunes to get all the audios during the week of May 8-12, 2006."
    Around 11 minutes 30 seconds in the recording they start talking about PSU and PSO, and about 15:30 is when they start interviewing Jonathan_F. It's pretty interesting to hear about how PSU is in a review. Congratulations on the Interview, Jon!

    by Published on Mar 23, 2006 06:29 PM
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    Nintendo president Saotru Iwata announced today at the 2006 Game Developers Conference that over 1000 games from Sega's Genesis and Hudson's libraries will be made available for Nintendo's new system, the Revolution. Nintendo said it is taking a "best of" approach for selecting the games that will appear on the Revolution's download service. Does this mean that the classic Phantasy Star Games (II through IV) will be made available? We'll have to wait for the answer, but it certainly seems like a strong possibility. You can discuss this news in our Classic Phantasy Star thread.

    4 Comments
    by Published on Oct 31, 2005 03:20 PM
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    As some of you may know, for a while I've been working on a project much different from Phantasy Star Monthly. I am now happy to announce the release of the first episode of The Monster Within, a machinima based on PSO. For those of you who don't know, a machinima is an art form using a video game to tell a story. The story follows Adam, a RAmar in training. For more information, and the link to download the first episode along with the video codec required to view it, please visit its home at phantasystarmonthly.com.

    12 Comments
    by Published on Oct 30, 2005 07:31 PM
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    Godfree7 writes, "Gamertag Radio Presents The First Annual Xbox Community Awards 2005. We would like to send our congrats to PSO World for being nominated on this award for "Best Fansite Based On A Game". You need to register on our site in order to vote."



    This is a huge honor for us. We've got some tough competition so register and vote for us here.

    3 Comments
    by Published on Sep 23, 2005 01:10 AM
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    Ok, that's just wishful thinking, however Computer and Video Games has an article stating that next year, SEGA will open a CG animation studio. You can read the whole story here.

    8 Comments
    by Published on Aug 25, 2005 11:50 PM
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    Over the summer, I had been working on a project to get through the original Phantasy Star as fast as possible. With a final time of 5 hours 40 minutes, you can download whole run on video from speeddemosarchive.com. Further details about the run can be found inside as well.

    4 Comments
    by Published on Jul 24, 2005 05:10 AM
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    IGN has put up an interesting commentary about the prospect of Sega's classic line up appearing on the Revolution. Sega president Simon Jeffrey had only to say that "We're very interested in Revolution at the moment. We obviously haven't made any announcements, but we, like other people, are talking with Nintendo about what Revolution will be, about potential opportunities on Revolution."

    If anyone has the Nintendo Power article this story originally comes from, please let us see it on the forums.

    13 Comments
    by Published on May 21, 2005 05:32 PM
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    googles writes, "Supadjxis from the official psobb forums announced that they will be launching the AOL cup, which is a version of maximum attack quest from the previous versions of pso. He also stated that hard mode will be unlocked after the update. Servers will be offline from 9pm to 12am (PST). The post can be found here. "



    Yes, along with everyone else that sent it in! I get knocked offline as I go to a certain concert in Hartford and the world turns upside down.

    Yes Maximum Attack has come to the english beta. But Sunset Base, has finally seen an english version. This quest which originally appeared on the Dreamcast version 2, was never seen in english until now.

    However this has left me wondering about the future of how updates are going to be handled. This was a 1 day warning against the JP version which allows at least a 1 week notification, and often longer.

    11 Comments
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