Hanbit Ubiquitous Entertainment today held a press conference in Tokyo focusing entirely on its PC-based MMORPG Granado Espada. The title is the first project of Hanbit Ubiquitous Entertainment, a joint venture of Japanese electronic giant Hitachi and South Korean MMORPG specialists Hanbit Soft that was established in November 2004.

At today's event the company revealed, that it has secured the services of Tomomi Kobayashi. The SaGa series character designer and illustrator is responsible for Granado Espada's character design.

Since going online in April, the game's official website has registered 10 million hits in May alone. More than 200 fansites have already been established, showing that the level of anticipation for this title, themed after the age of 17th and 18th century colonization and exploration, is very high in Japan.

As far as the release schedule is concerned, representatives today explained that Hanbit was currently preparing a closed beta testing phase in South Korea. A closed beta test in Japan would commence one or two weeks afterwards. Several hundred testers will take part in this initial testing phase, which is currently scheduled for summer 2005. An open beta test will follow in fall.

Granado Espada will be released in Japan in late 2005 or early 2006.

• Famitsu