"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
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!"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."