At a strategy conference in Tokyo today, Sega unveiled its strategy for the upcoming holiday season and the year 2006. At the event, the company announced that it has entered into strategic publishing agreements with THQ, Chunsoft and Vivarium. Under the agreement announced today, Sega will publish four upcoming Chunsoft games, including the newest entry into the company's Shiren series, tentatively titled Fushigi no Dungeon: Fuurai no Shiren DS. The game will be available in Japan only in late 2006, though. Chunsoft president Kouichi Nakamura however confirmed that his company's partnership with Sega will not be limited to those four games.

Afterwards, Phantasy Star Universe producer Takao Miyoshi took the stage to talk about the highly anticipated RPG project whose development he is overseeing. The main theme of the game's story mode will be "what is it that you have to protect?", whereas the theme of the network mode will be "the discovery of what the player has to protect". The story mode will be offering more than 40 hours of play time. The network mode will include a new feature known as "Cut-in-Chat". When talking to another user, a manga-style, animated face will appear on screen. Players can also buy a room of their own and are then free to decorate this "home, sweet home" according to their own taste. Miyoshi explained that he was aiming to deliver a game that is based on more than five years of experience with Phantasy Star Online. Currently it wasn't clear however, whether PlayStation 2 and PC users could play together online at the same time. Phantasy Star Universe is currently listed for a winter release in Japan.

Below you will find a complete list of Sega's line-up for the holiday season 2005/2006:

Phantasy Star Universe, PlayStation 2/PC, winter, tba
Tenka-bito, PlayStation 2, winter, 6,800 yen ($61.54 USD)
Sakura Taisen 1 and 2, PlayStation Portable, spring 2006, tba

• Famitsu