Ragol.co.uk Forumer Starman has raised a nice little issue over in our forums in this particular thread, whereby he's noticed that Play.com has set a date and is taking Pre-Orders for Phantasy Star Universe. So i thought, i wonder if retailers may have been given a date yet that maybe we haven't looked up? But then i thought, i'm way too lazy to be bothered, so i sent off our little Chao instead. He demanded some money, but instead we broke him down to just giving him his own little spot, which he likes to call...

Look at him go, scouring the universe for the best retail information on PSU! So, without further delay, it's over to Chao and his findings (Listed in order of Release Date):

>> U.K.

GameStation
• PlayStation2 & PC
• 1st April 2006
• Play.com
• PlayStation2 (£29.99) & PC (£26.99)
• 30th June 2006
• Simply Games
• PC (£20.98)
• 30th June 2006
• GAME
• PlayStation2 (£32.99)
• June 2006
• GamePlay
• PlayStation2 (£29.99) & PC (£24.99)
• 25th August 2006

>> U.S.A

• GameStop
• PlayStation2 ($49.99) & PC ($49.99)
• 1st May 2006
• Best Buy
• PlayStation2 ($49.99)
• 4th May 2006
• Amazon.com
• PlayStation2 ($39.99)
• 6th May 2006
• Electronics Boutique
• PlayStation2 ($49.99)
• 6th May 2006

>> Japanese OST [Phantasy Star Universe: Symphony Sessions]

• Amazon.com
• $34.99
• 22nd February 2006
• Click Here for More Information
• CD Universe
• $34.29
• 28th February 2006
• Click Here for More Information
• eBay's Half.com
• $TBA
• February
• Click Here for More Information

As the U.K. (And Mainland Europe) listings show, the majority presume Universe is due for retail release in late June (Listing 30th June as the most popular date), meanwhile all of the collected listings from American games websites list Universe for a release in the first week of May. Can these be taken as unofficial release dates? Have/will these dates be subject to the recent Japanese delay for Universe which is now set at 30th March 2006? Will Chao ever be able to have some of my pie? We'll have to wait and see.

Talking of Chao, he's also come back to us with news of the official soundtrack to Phantasy Star Universe, which according to the sources above, see's it's Japanese release at the end of February 2006 (Before the game has been released?! It's a mad mad world!). If you would like to get your grubby mits on a copy of the Soundtrack, the only way to officially own one is to import it from Japan, via. the use of any of the listed websites above. Many of the listed websites also ship outside of America to Europe, so although you will have to wait a little bit longer, you can still pre-order one now for your listening pleasure before you're able to own and play the game too!

Of course, i have asked Chao to keep a careful eye over them all, so we'll be back hopefully soon when we get a confirmed date from SEGA of Europe. In the meantime though, why not discuss your thoughts on this, and release dates for Universe at all in this Ragol.co.uk Forum Thread. Until next time though, it's Chao for now!

There will be server maintenance on the Nintendo Gamecube Phantasy Star Online servers during January 31st 2006 between the times of 14:00 & 17:00 (Japanese Time).

During this time please do not attempt to connect to the servers as if maintenance is happening on your corresponding servers at that time then you will be automatically disconnected after connecting. If you happen to be playing during these times please disconnect otherwise at the time when maintenance starts you will be disconnected from your game no matter what! You are given 10 minutes warning via. constant on-screen messages counting down until the time the upgrades start. This affects all players of the following Nintendo Gamecube games:

• Phantasy Star Online, Episodes I & II
• Phantasy Star Online, Episodes I & II Plus
• Phantasy Star Online, Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution

Please reconnect after these times where service continues as normal. It's that time of the year folks, Valentines is coming, and what will you be giving you PSO partner on this special occasion? Yep, it's the Valentines Event!

Earlier today Sonic Team of Japan jumped onto their update train and went all the way to Universeville with details of a few extra's that you'll also find in Phantasy Star Universe's Online mode.

The screenshots above as you can see show the standard GUI used in the game with in the top left screen, a clock being placed just underneath the very PSO-esque map. To the top right shows the character's room and options screen, telling us you'll be able to perform a number of activites in your very own humble abode! On the next line down, the very detailed character customisation system is being put to the full effect in the left piccie, to the middle seems to show maybe a message system? Guild Cards perhaps? While to the right, a boss fight seems as if it's just about to take place.

Sonic Team have also just today released 14 full blown screenshots. Awe at Universe in all it's upcoming glory! Click to Enlarge:

Quite stunning screenies i think you'll agree, and putting these alongside our other collection of screenshots in our blow out article on Universe, there's well over 100 different reasons to make Universe your much needed game of 2006 as far as screenshots alone go!

It seems as if a fair few people are currently experiencing connection problems to the English version of Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst, as posting has seen in our own forums here, and the official Blue Burst boards here.

The problem is that the error '(No903) Patch server connection failed' is appearing before, or shortly after the connection/patching screen (Normally seen just after hitting the 'Start Game' button) is loaded.

If you are experiencing such difficulties, 'Clumsyorchid' of the official Blue Burst boards is asking if those people can contact him so he is aware that you are going through such problems. However it seems at the moment, there is nothing that can be done except to keep trying, or to play the waiting game.

If you are in need of some luck to connect, why not try crossing your fingers? I've also heard that Rabbits feet are always good to have in dire times. Note Ragol.co.uk is not liable for any bunny, rabbit, or hare murdering.

[UPDATE] Aparently some changes have been made to both the login and patch servers, and accessing the game now should not be a problem. If you are still experiencing connections troubles, 'Clumsyorchid' has asked that people send him a message through the official Blue Burst boards which can be found through http://psobb.com. Happy Hunting!

As we all know, Phantasy Star Universe has once again been a victim of the tragic 'delay' series of diseases as we're getting used too now with the more recent incarnations of Phantasy Star Online. In Japan, it's current date is 30th March 2006, but what about those English dates?!

Well, Ragol.co.uk Forumers A.S. has posted up on SEGA of America's recent date changing on their PSU webpage. The date now reads 'Fall' (Autumn) 2006 for both the PC & PlayStation2 versions. The date on SEGA of Europe's webpage however remains at 'Summer 2006'. Surely Europe won't be getting it ahead of America, so dates are still up in the air for an 'outside of Japan' release of Universe, and so we'll update you when we get some more concrete info on the subject at hand!

In the meantime though, be sure to read up on everything we know about Universe... in all the Universe!

Sonic Team of Japan have been at their box marked 'Things to use to tease people over Phantasy Star Universe' once again as they pass on more screens concerning the party and party speak features:

Last night saw the first ever Ragol.co.uk Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst Battle Competition. While the event was a moderate success, many battles took place (Which in the end it was all about! lol), and winners were found. Congratulations to the main winner of the competition, 'R. Eclipse'. The secondary winner of the competition was '[}@rkSteel' after having his matches shuffled around a fair bit. Trust me when i say, next time such a competition is held, it will be organised much better!

To that end, we have a few snapshots of the event taking place in a busy ol' Oceanus06! Click to Enlarge:

If you have any snapshots of the event, please don't hesitate to send them this way! All Battle Snapshots above were taken by Ragol.co.uk Forumer 'Poo Fly'. Many thanks to all that came along, and i hope you enjoyed the over par battle experience! Cheers!

Sonic Team of Japan have been at it again, as they reveal yet more evil that awaits to be slain by you in the Universe!

Sonic Team have also revealed more information concerning Item & Weapon Types. However, because it's all in the wonderful language of Japanese as always, i can't tell you anything about it at this time! In the meantime enjoy some more screenshots of the menus to get a small idea of how it all works.

As the screenshots above show, weapons seemingly have different levels, of which you can buy new items to use in conjunction with the weapons you like to power them up even more! With every weapon you select, in the box just underneath appears what type the weapon is, and with which other types of weapons you can combine it with, to either use at the same time, or otherwise. As always, those vital statistics are shown in the box to the bottom right.

If you thought we'd forgotten about the competition for the already once delayed Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst Battle Tournament, then don't worry, it's still coming! When?

The Battle Tournament takes place on Sunday 15th January 2006... that's THIS SUNDAY. To participate, simply come along to the Oceanus Server, Block 6, Lobby 1, at 9pm (21:00) GMT (1pm EST) with your battling character! All entrants will then be added to our Tournament Brackets, and then Battle commences on Rule #2. For more details on how the competition will work, check out this Ragol.co.uk Forum Thread. You do not have to be a Ragol.co.uk Forum user to participate in this competition.

Make sure you're around this Sunday, and be sure to tell all your friends! The winner will recieve one of our special Ragol.co.uk Dog Tags so you can really rub it in everyone elses face!

Christmas is of course all over, and now with our Christmas Competitions finished too, that means the poll must be changed. But, what did you think was the most interesting competition?

• Which Xmas competition takes your fancy the most?
  • Blue Burst Battle
    • 12.4% (24)
  • Episodes I & II Battle
    • 39.8% (77)
  • Episode III Battle
    • 6.7% (13)
  • TTF Team Challenge
    • 10.8% (21)
  • Guess the Song!
    • 6.2% (12)
  • Banzai!
    • 4.6% (9)
  • '5 Years of PSO' FanArt
    • 7.2% (14)
  • '5 Years of PSO' Snapshot
    • 4.6% (9)
  • Forum Signature Contest
    • 7.2% (14)
      • Total Votes: 193

Ironically, the majority (40%) of you said that you were most interested in the Phantasy Star Online, Episodes I & II Battle Competition... very ironic and laughable when compared to the... 2 that turned up for the event!!! After that, all the votes were pretty evenly split between all the other events taking place.

This time in the polls, we want your votes on another Phantasy Star Universe matter which has started an interesting debate on our community forums. After posting an extract from an interview with the director of Phantasy Star Universe from IGN that saw the director comment on the possibility of Universe being reproduced for another of the Next Generation consoles aswell as PlayStation2 and PC, which console do you think is most likely to see the release? Happy Voting!

Christmas is over, and so are all of our competitions that we held throughout the course to celebrate not only christmas, but 5 years of PSO too!

To that end, i'd like to take this time to greatly thank everyone who participated in either entering, voting, or even posting in relation to any of the various competitions we held. Out of all the competitions we held, revealed are all of those winners who went the extra mile and are to be rewarded both with an entry into Ragol.co.uk's Hall of Fame, and to winning a prize!

All of the results of every competition held this Christmas can be found in this Ragol.co.uk Forum Thread, alongside all the entries to the Snapshot, FanArt, and Forum Signature competitions. Find out who did what, and whether or not you won a prize by taking part, all by clicking here!

If you are a winner of a prize (Or prizes!), then please either PM, or E-Mail (Lee-yoshi@Ragol.co.uk) your postal address to me before 17th January 2006, otherwise you'll lose out! Please remember that your postal address will not be used for anything else other then the posting of your prize. Your address will not be shared with ANYONE, and will be deleted from my computer and records after January 17th.

Once again a big congratulations to everyone who has entered and won special prizes! We hope you enjoyed the Christmas Competition Extravanganza we've held in honour of 5 Years of Phantasy Star Online, which we also hope you have enjoyed in some way or another.

Thank you to all, and we'll see you in around 350 days time for maybe some more Christmas Competition Action!

Lee-yoshi

Force10 has today announced that SEGA will be using Force10's TeraScale E-Series switch/router technology as the core router for many of their forthcoming games servers. The reason SEGA has decided to move towards Force10's technology comes hand in hand with the increasing number of Broadband gamers in this next generation of video gaming.

"To provide the online gaming experience our users demand, we needed a robust infrastructure that could both provide performance predictability and scale as new players enter the game. The E-Series switch/router provided us with the high capacity we needed to simplify our network and allowed us to create the reliability of an offline game in an interactive online world."

-Yoshimi Agata, Network Engineer at Sega.

An extract from the Press Release reads "With industry-leading Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet densities, the Force10 TeraScale E-Series enables SEGA to connect several hundred servers to a single system, simplifying network topologies and reducing both capital and operational costs.". This means that not only are SEGA saving money, but they'll be able to allow millions of players from all around the world to connect to the same servers in the blink of an eye, and do this so in a much more reliable and dependable manner. New players will also be able to join existing games at anytime with next to nothing interupting others on the network, a big factor to consider when thinking about how MMORPG's will work, such as Phantasy Star Universe.

The current titles SEGA have running on these networks are RF Online, Chromehounds (Xbox360), and Phantasy Star Universe (All set for release later this year), which will be running on the same networks.

Sonic Team of Japan have officially today announced that the Japanese launch of Phantasy Star Universe has been postponed from it's current date of 16th February 2006 until 30th March 2006.

This news was originally spotted by Ragol.co.uk Forumer A.S. yesterday here, but was made official by Sonic Teams announcement earlier today.

Another Fortnight, and a little later then usual, but nonetheless, it's time for another stunning edition of the Hunters Gazette! Unfortunately though, this edition, which was supposed to be released on 30th December to end 2005, is also the last in the fortnightly series of Ragol.co.uk's finest. Yes, after 35 editions, the Hunters Gazette has come to an end, so it's only right that in this edition, we go over everything that has been and gone in the past of the Hunters Gazette.

 Hunters Gazette - This is it.

Click Here to go the the Hunters Gazette

Since July 24th 2004, the Hunters Gazette has been on and off, and throughout 2005 there wasn't a fortnight that didn't come with a Hunters Gazette, so if you haven't read them all, now is the perfect time to read all about it!

I'd just like to thank all the loyal readers out there who've read my various issues of the Ragol.co.uk Hunters Gazette, whether in the past or still today. However the Hunters Gazette will return in the future, in various one-off specials from time-to-time. So, once again, cheers! [Lee-yoshi]

I've had a busy ol' chrimbo, but you'd be wrong for thinking Sonic Team of Japan have been slacking on the Phantasy Star Universe updates and making up for that time by drinking more booze and gulping down more turkey, because they haven't... that's just me. It's because of that, that one hell of a huge set of Universe news has built up, built up so much infact, that not even some kind of genetically modified wolf could blow it all down. Speaking of genetically modified looking mutations, let's get on with the updates!

Sonic Team have unvieled the dark side of Universe, and boy is it looking ugly! With some of the enemies/bosses you'll be battling with in-game shown above, it's going to take some time to get through this game in one go! To the left is a dragon looking creature that has already been shown in many screenshots posted by Sonic Team previously, and just as an extra treat, we've got more screenshots below! The dragon isn't alone though, we've also got screenshots of the other two enemies shown above below too! Ouchy mama! Click to Enlarge them:

Sonic Team of Japan have also released a little more regarding the Nanoblasts. As you should know by now, performing a Nanoblast might have one hell of a sideffect on your character, depending on who you're playing as. Shown above, are the creatures you'll be using to phone up Claims Direct to get some compensation for the sideffects that takeaway dinner has caused you to turn into. Besides this move, Beastmen and indeed the Beastwomen have their attributes changed, including your general attack power, which increases quite a bit. Screenshots below also show you just what kind of moves you could be performing with your new found powah!

Feel sorry for the characters who don't have beast turning into like powers? Well, don't be! Get yourself some 'SUV-Weapon's' and blow your enemies to the otherside of the Universe in just one shot with, as the image above, and the screenshots below show, using some sets of oversized novelty guns! Looks silly doesn't it? Poor little Lou carrying those huge guns, well her power doesn't go to her head, more to her arms so she can carry such artillery. Is it worth it? Ooooh yes!

Finally the last piece of news coming from Sonic Team themselves concerns your characters appearance more then their attributes.

Yes, that's right, in Phantasy Star Universe you can change your characters costumes, and there's a much bigger wardrobe available to you then there is with our much loved Phantasy Star Online. As the image aside shows, you simply take yourself around to an appropriate store in the Shopping Centre held within the lobby, and buy yourself new clothes whenever you want to change your look! Maybe shorts in the Summertime instead of fleeces and santa red in Christmas-time? Well whatever look you want, go get it at your local shopping centre, and store your old clothes in your rooms wardrobe should you want to change back later! Lovely Jubbley. Luckily enough, Sonic Team have shown us just how different costumes might look when you've changed... exciting stuff no?

You can find all of these updates added aswell as everything else there is to know about Phantasy Star Universe in our huge... huge article, entitled 'Phantasy Star Universe - Everything we know in all the Universe!'.

As January comes around again, it's time for more sales!

Just on the quick note of browsing through websites and stores, if you haven't already, you can pick up the fantastic tactical and strategy based Phantasy Star Online, Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution for Nintendo Gamecube for only £4.98!

Surely at that price, it's worth a look yes? Click Here for more!

Christmas has been, and it's by far gone now for another year, and as christmas ends, it also closes here on Ragol.co.uk. Our Christmas Competitions have proved popular in some areas, and not so popular in other areas. Regardless, it's got to the stage where we need to decide winners, and we're deciding on those winners through you!

Our Xmas '5 Years of Phantasy Star Online' competitions have all closed now, and we need you to choose from 8 submitted amazing pieces of FanArt so we can crown a winner. Even if you're not planning on voting, there is still some fantastic FanArt you NEED to see, and you can see it all, aswell as vote for your favourites, in this Ragol.co.uk Forum Thread.

Our Forum Signature competition voting has also ended, but it's ended with a tie, so we once again need your votes to choose between the two top signatures so far so we can crown the one winner! To do that please move your viewing over to this Ragol.co.uk Forum Thread.

Thank you for participating in our Xmas Competitions and we hoped you took full advantage of the opportunities! We'll see you in around 350 days time for some more Christmas fun!

'the_importer' has gotten in contact with us, and while scratching his way through SEGA of Japan's SEGA Link system, he's unearthed a very cool Phantasy Star Universe ScreenSaver!

Because of his good natured soul, you can now download this great screensaver through Ragol.co.uk! How? Simply Click Here to Download the 5.66Mb file which comes in a .zip format holding a .exe file.

To install, unzip the .zip file, extract the .exe file to a safe place on your computer, and then run the file. When installing, you may find ?'s in place of... well, words! To install it successfully, click the left button at the first screen, and then the left button again at the second screen that you have the choice to press buttons to continue with the installation.

Your computer will then automatically set it as your default screensaver. Enjoy!