(Akiba K News Headline) PC software producer F&C Co., has announced their popular game title "Pia Carrot"to be released for theaters as a motion picture anime.

Tentatively titled "Pia Carrot - Sayaka no Natsu Monogatari" ("Pia Carrot - Sayaka's Summer Story"), no details have been released on the motion picture other than the main female character from Pia Carrot 3 (Sayaka) to be in the anime, as well as previous heroines in the series.

"Pia Carrot - Sayaka no Natsu Monogatari", is scheduled for release in late September by Film Partners Inc., and will be playing at Warner Mycal Cinemas in Japan (a subsidiary of the Warner Brothers group).

Special thanks to Zepy Maehara for the news.

Net-game based news site ForGamer.net has released details on the hardware which runs Square's upcoming online service, PlayOnline. The information was released in 4/26, at the "Sun Product Forum 2002" seminar held in Japan.

As creating a single server group which can manage 1 million users is impossible, Square plans to run the service in seperated server groups- "worlds", each which can serve 50,000-60,000 users.*1

Servers running in PlayOnline include the game servers (FFXI, TetraMaster, etc), player profile servers, item shop, ranking master, auction, and game information servers. These are front-end servers, composed by a total of 1500 PCs running on Solaris8.

There are two database systems that the front-ends are connected to:: a full-cluster system composed of two SunFire6800(UltraSparcIII/8CPU,8GB Memory) servers, and a system composed of a SunStorEdge(73GB Triple layered mirror system). Data that only requires access by users are managed under a NAS(Network Attached Storage) system, running under 8 NFS servers.

Square's PlayOnline services are scheduled for launch in 5/16, simultaneously with the release of Final Fantasy XI.

Special thanks to Techside for the news.

*1- Short Comment- Also mentioned by Techside, 20 Worlds are already confirmed, so 50,000 x 20 = 1 million users. Voila. - "Madman" Henry Moriarty

(AMPress, 4/19) Playmore- the successor of SNK's intellectual property, has filed three law suits against former SNK parent company, Aruze.

The three suits are based on the misuse of intellectual property by Aruze without permission by Playmore in two Pachinko machines- "Crazy Racer R" and "Bakuchou", and one Playstation 2 game- "Aruze Oukoku 6".

Aruze comments "(We) will have to take it on. The issue is currently under examination.". The claim for compensation in the three cases against Aruze, total to 3.6 Billion Yen.

Special thanks to Namae No Nai Heya for the news.

Video game fanart site "Fatal-Force", has released advertisement scans of Evoga's new NeoGeo title, "The Rage of the Dragons".

Taken from the Hong Kong "King Of Fighters 2001" comic, the advertisements feature the new official illustration of the game, and details of the game system.

For the images, check Fatal-Force, or the mirror.

Short Comment- The site owner of Fatal-Force mailed me about the scan, and also commented that the character select screens which were mentioned previously, look different because of game modes, and not due to extra characters. - "Madman" Henry Moriarty

Just when Microsoft regained their face from the negativity in Japan with their console's Disk scratch problem, here rises another issue. The following article is about a new book under Prima Publishing by Dean Takahashi, titled "Opening the Xbox- Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution".

(Salon.com, Quoted)
' "Any of the insidery stuff they just really didn't want to get out," he said. "The fact that the initial code name was Project Midway -- they don't want the Japanese people to know that because it will hurt their feelings." The Battle of Midway in 1942 was the turning point of the Pacific War. Before the November 2001 launch of the Xbox, all of the players in the console hardware market -- Sony, Nintendo and Sega -- were Japanese firms. '


For the full read, check Salon.com's [ Article ]. Come to think, I don't ever recall seeing game publisher Midway Co.'s name under game titles imported & sold in Japan either, so I guess the Taboo is present.
Special thanks to Keltorp for the news.

In related news, Gamers.com reports that Microsoft was originally trying to acquire a major software publisher. "I thought it was a joke", says the US president of the company. Read the article [ Here ].
- Henry A. Moriarty

Eh-oh. And just as I was reading this, I was munching on some Teriyaki & Mayonaise flavored chips.

(Reuters, Quoted)
"Cancer Risk Found in French Fries, Bread -- STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Basic foods eaten by millions around the world such as bread, biscuits, potato chips and french fries contain alarmingly high quantities of acrylamide, a substance believed to cause cancer, Swedish scientists said on Wednesday.

The research carried out at Stockholm University in cooperation with experts at Sweden's National Food Administration, a government food safety agency, showed that heating of carbohydrate-rich foods, such as potatoes, rice or cereals formed acrylamide, a much studied substance classified as a probable human carcinogen.

Findings unveiled at a news conference called by the food administration showed that an ordinary bag of potato chips may contain up to 500 times more of the substance than the top level allowed in drinking water by the World Health Organization (news - web sites).

French fries sold at Swedish franchises of U.S. fast-food chains Burger King Corp and McDonald's contained about 100 times the one microgram per liter maximum permitted by the WHO for drinking water, the study showed."


For the full article, check Reuters [ Article (Yahoo Archive) ].
- Henry A. Moriarty