Thanks to Ryna for this information, I'll let the article speak for itself

Phantasy Star Universe has officially been announced for release in North America and Europe. Confirmed by SEGA of America just moments before we went to press, the brand new role-player will launch in February of 2006 and is being simultaneously developed for the PlayStation 2 and Windows PC.

You can check out the whole story at this direct link to it at IGN

Its time once again for a Card Revolution. The cards that are being changed are as follows

Cross Scar: HP = 8, 3 AP, 4 TP
Guld Milla: HP = 9, 2 AP
St. Rappy: HP = 9, 6 AP
Mil Lilly: HP = 7, 2 AP, 3 TP
Damage Blow: Cost = 2
Attack 6: Cost = 3
Hand Break: Cost = 2, AP = +1, Colors: not red or blue
Snatch: Cost = 1
Penetrate guard: Cost = 2, HP +1
Fix: Cost = 4
Heavy Fog: Cost = 3

Also 3 cards will have their rarity changed. Madame's Umbrella +, Sonic Knuckles +, and Sinow Beat +.


These changes go into effect on April 12th. Remember that future card revolutions can be found here

Congratulations to Nites who beat me to the punch this time..

Challenge mode is on its way...no not episode IV, Blue Burst doesn't even have episode II challenge mode yet, but it will soon.



That's right, Episode II challenge mode will be released on the 12th, but that's not all that's been revealed for this month.

Also on the 12th until the 19th, curtains and cherry trees are going up.


Also on the 17th, there's going to be another GM event. This time, Lobby chair racing! The act that's been done since they were introduced on the Gamecube and Xbox. This is going to be one big event. teams of three will be formed in the soccer lobby and using the color markers a relay race will be performed.



Also as stated earlier, the Login Cup for Maximum Attack ver. 2 will begin on the 26th and go until May 24th. And along with that, Laughing at the beach will be released.

Coming in late may Towards the Future will be uploaded for Episode I, and also item purchasing by teams will be enabled. Along with that the first Episode IV quest, "To the center of the disaster" will be online as well. Starting on May 31st until June 21st, An illustration contest will also be going on.

In early june, challenge mode Episode II stage 4 will be uploaded.

Finally in late june, A new Episode IV quest will be uploaded (no name given) along with the first 2 of the endless nighmare series for Episode IV, quite a speedy start compared to Episode II's endless nightmare series, Phantasmal World which took 2 years to come out. A nice long look at what's to come, but the only question now is will anyone be doing any intensive training for that lobby chair race?

As I'm sure many of you have already seen, the easter theme has been uploaded to the Gamecube servers. It'll be up until the 26th, so hunt those egg rappies while you can.

The Blue Burst team has issued a statement that Blue Burst is going to have new update times from now on. It'll remain on tuesday (over there) and being changed to 11:00 to 16:00. This translates to generally 10 PM Eastern Standard Time, depending on if your area observes daylight savings time. I guess they've gotten tired of not being able to reach their deadlines each week.

Cherry blossoms will be in bloom tomorrow after the maintenance. However they will only be up for a week, so enjoy them while you can.

And so the day has come to an end. To everyone that said all three stories were fake, Congratulations. You fell for the trap!

I played a game of The Boy Who Cried Wolf with all of you. I expected people to not believe any story any more after 2 lies, and that's exactly what happened as I can tell. Here's how it all went down.

Story 1: Episode V. Completely fake. The only thing that is possibly true is Blue Burst USA coming out this month, but that's only based on the front page sega.com poll. The video was made by editing frame by frame at 1600% zoom in photoshop all 18 frames that make up the running animation of a HUmar. That was then colored all over with Blue and I placed that with a blue screen effect on top of a video cropped from Metroid Prime.

Story 2: The recall isn't true, but the lawsuit is! It actually started a few years ago between Immersion, the company that developed the tech, and Sony and Microsoft named as the patent infringers. Microsoft settled out of court, but Sony didn't, and they were slapped with a 90.7 million fine. You can read all of the details here. Sony is currently in an injunction which is allowing them to continue selling while it appeals.

Story 3: This is where the game ended. The trap was set, and the play was made. Everything about this story was true, except for the part about Episode V and that was simply a link back to the first story of the day.

Well I hope you all enjoyed playing in today's little game. Until next year, Happy April Fools Day!

On top of today's Episode V announcement, Sega has revamped the US PSOBB website. You can find it here. Admittedly there's not much up yet, however it appears that Sega will be putting up both a tips section as well as start listing press quotes about the game. However no new information has gone up as of this time, the data appears to have been a direct copy and paste of the old page.

As I'm sure some of you know, Sony was recently fined in court for $90 million and asked to stop selling the Playstation and Playstation 2s which infringe on the patents, or rather the dualshock controllers do. Also more than 40 games are being pulled from shelves.

Now you may be wondering what this has to do with us? Well Phantasy Star Universe is planned only for the PC and the PS2 at this time. And with the PS2 now no longer being sold in the USA, there's little chance of the Phantasy Star Universe being translated for PS2 users.

However there is now hope. Sony in a new plan to keep the playstation consoles alive has begun to recall its units from stores and will now be removing the controller from the box and slapping a new price of $129.99 and slapping a sticker on the box stating "No controller included, please purchase at store." However its doubtful the 40+ games will be allowed back on the market.

Edit: Yes. stand alone controllers are being recalled as well.

Yuji Naka has kept his word and has proved it in a PSO-World exclusive! We've been given a glimpse of Phantasy Star Online Episode V!

The story goes: A year after the defeat of Olga Flow, a weird series of explosions has been detected at the north pole of Ragol. When a team was sent down to investigate what was going on, contact was lost. Natasha has called on the Hunters again to investigate what happened to the lost team, and find out what is causing the explosions.

Once again you'll be teamed up with Elly. However due to the strong magnetic effect there is at the poles of the planet, communications may not always be possible. It'll be the same as well for telepipes as well so the item shops that were seen in the towers were deployed to the poles after being fitted with specialized heating units to prevent them from freezing.

This is very much an unfinished product at this time so I'm sure you'll see that there are some things missing or that there are some graphical problems, as not all of the graphical elements have been enabled. There's also work of a new HUD going on so that also is missing. This is the bare minimum of what is finished. There weren't even any monsters yet in this video I recieved but map work of the first area is finished as far as I can tell. Also the music appears to be called The Silent Blizzard Of North part 1 from the note I received. Prepare for the biting cold everyone!

Video! You're gonna need divx to view this video and you can pick that up at divx.com.

So you're wondering, "EPISODE V?! We don't even have Episode IV yet, or Blue Burst for that matter!" Don't worry, I've got all of the info. Blue Burst will be coming out this month, and Episode IV coming early summer. Finally Episode V will be released early next year in Japan and a few months after that here in the US. Let the continued explorations of Ragol begin!

momonpso writes "Starting March 30th and until April 30th XBox will be decorated for Easter. Giant Easter baskets have been installed in the lobbys.

Also a new quest has been added. Max Attack 1 Ver 2 This is an online VR quest for up to 4 players. How many monsters can you kill? Help reach the maximum!"

OK guys, Go for it! Make that Rappy's dream come true! (hopefully next month)

9-7 and 9-8 have been announced for Episode IV and will be uploaded tomorrow to the Blue Burst servers.

9-7: Leaving behind the inner child

Desert 3 is here, but watch out. Some of the natural formations are quite tricky. Hurry! Collect that meteroite fragment before it's too late!



9-8: Turning to the end

Arriving at the end of Episode IV, what mystery awaits the hunters, and what is it that caused the meteroite to skid off course to Ragol?



Welcome to the end everyone. The quest has been fairly short this time around, however now we just have to see if Naka plans to keep his word and keep PSO going.

The Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst team has issued a notification to all players about future usage of images from the game. In the statement, they are requesting proper SEGA identification and copyright on all future images henceforth. Examples of how to place the copyright and the notification can be found here.

Thanks to everyone who had submitted this information. Many people have recieved their copies of EGM, and here's the general idea of what's in there.

Online and Offline modes, supposedly separate from each other, offline with 40 hours of game play.

Offline details: The game begins on the 100th aniversary of the formation of the common wealth. Main characters Ethan and Lumia are attending. In the sky is an airshow, but it is soon disrupted by an alien race. The game appears to be partly mission based as you'll recieve assignments in your (Ethan's) own room. Battles will be action oriented like PSO.

Online details: Not many details are known about online mode. What is known is that you can have a whole lot more customization with your character than there was in PSO, and that the number of players in game has been increased from 4 to up to 65, making this game not quite MMO just yet. sources: EGM and IGN

Maximum Attack has once again come to Blue Burst. This time its called the Login Cup



Shoot for 100 million points everyone. It begins on April 26th. Also be on the lookout for that singing rappy in Laughing at the beach.