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Sony has moved to allay fears that environmental problems with 1.3 million impounded PSone units in the Netherlands could cause supply problems for the rest of Europe this Christmas. As well as the 1.3m consoles, 800,000 accessory items were seized due to high levels of cadmium. It is thought that the problem lies within the cables supplied with PSone, and that Sony will release a new batch of consoles and cables by the middle of this month. It is not yet known what will become of the grounded consoles and accessories. Related Feature - PSone grounded

Ghost Recon is the latest in the series of Tom Clancy endorsed tactical-action games which started with the pioneering Rainbow Six. As such it's a rather touchy subject at the moment, and has come under the scrutiny of the over-sensitive since the terrorist attacks on America. Thankfully though it hasn't suffered the ridiculous levels of censorship currently being forced on many new releases. There is a story backing up the fifteen mission campaign, but as usual this takes a back seat to the action. Apparently Russia has fallen under the control of nationalistic leaders whose aim is to reinstate the communist regime. First up on their agenda is the capture of Georgia, and subsequently the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The escalating war naturally leads to a conflict with the UN, and as a result you and your platoon of "Ghosts" (you know, another band of elite covert fighting machines trained in the arts of .. whatever) are sent in to whoop some Russian booty and rescue the princess. Okay, maybe the princess will come in the patch. So far, so familiar. But after the numerous Rainbow Six mission packs, rehashes, and re-rehashes, we were anxious to see whether or not Red Storm still had what it takes to excite and enthral, and if they could come up with something worthy of our attention. We've been spoiled over the last year or two with the likes of Operation Flashpoint and SWAT3, and we were looking to Ghost Recon to provide something new to grab our attention.

Have you been holding off getting your PlayStation 2 chipped for import copies and the like? With the proliferation of different kinds of modchip (Origa, NEO4 and more), it's been tough making a decision, but specialist e-tailer Madeira Games may just have the solution. Announced today, the Messiah PS2 modchip plays PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games from any region, PAL or NTSC, without the need for a disk-swap to start them up, along with all sorts of backups, including CDR, Silvers, DVDR and even Hong Kong Silvers. Although we don't condone that sort of thing, Messiah still stands out as the first chip to support proper multiregion gameplay. It costs £64 to pre-order the chip, or you can negotiate with them directly about fitting costs. There is bound to be a big queue of gamers eager to have their hardware hacked up for Messiah, so if you're interested, we suggest you get on with it.

EA Sports BIG have taken the wraps off their next big PlayStation 2 project after SSX Tricky, and naturally they are sticking to what they are best at: freestylin'. FreekStyle is "the most dangerous motocross game around", daring you to "harness the power of your bike while pulling off sick stunts in insane, over the top worlds." SSX fans rejoice; it looks as though the overpopulated motocross genre is going to get the BIG treatment. For those of you who haven't kept up with the SSX phenomenon; EA Sports BIG is a Canada-based team that has taken the snowboarding genre to new heights, with virtually every competitor's product now resembling SSX / Tricky in some way or other. EA expect FreekStyle to have the same effect, this time on the motocross genre. Rugged forest floors replace the snow-capped mountains, but hitting massive jumps at more than 70mph will still be the order of the day, "hitting a 40 foot jump at the ledge of a 200 foot cliff and pulling off a Superman Seat grab, a Saran-wrap and 360 all before you land." This time it's all about being fearless, and like Tricky before it, FreekStyle will feature eight colourful characters and a gentle reward structure. FreekStyle will arrive on PlayStation 2 in the Spring. In the meantime, check out our selection of screenshots. Related Feature - FreekStyle screenshots

Microsoft's plan to sell Xbox to Korean gamers next October has driven Sony to bring its own machines to the console-free country (officially, at any rate). Sony has said it will open a Korean office on 10 December which will prepare the ground for the launch of both the PSone and PlayStation 2 next February. By the end of June, the Japanese giant will have released the PlayStation 2 and 60 games. Some 40 more titles will ship during the second half of 2002. Sony's move follows extensive market research carried out a few months back. Console vendors have traditionally been wary of the Korean market, fearing that the levels of the software piracy there may seriously threaten their sales. As a result, the PC has established itself as Korea's main gaming platform, with online games, in particular, strongly appealing to Korean gamers. Korea has the world's highest penetration of broadband Internet access. The dominance of the PC has also further discouraged console vendors from trying to crack the market. Microsoft clearly reckons Xbox is a strong challenger to a cheap gaming PC - in many ways it is a cheap gaming PC, after all. And Sony doesn't want to give up a market to its arch-rival.

Although it may be highly amusing to see the Americans deprived of Shenmue II due to a management cock-up, it's a tremendous game - one for the fans - and we'd feel bad if they never got to play it. Fortunately, it looks as though a number of major retailers in the USA have banded together and agreed to import copies from Europe, selling at around $59.99. Some Electronics Boutique stores are bundling a DC-X boot disk to allow gamers to play the imported software. So, if you live in North America and would like nothing better than to deal with Ryu's father's killers once and for all (no guarantees, mind), then you could do a lot worse than hot-foot it to your local games emporium and ask what their plans are. Otherwise, a number of mail order companies (including National Console Support) will happily service your needs. Related Feature - Shenmue review

Squaresoft's PlayOnline gaming service has been trialling in Japan for a while now, in beta form, and The GIA has rounded up a number of screenshots and MP3 files from the system's interface. The shots come from the "PlayOnline Viewer" software supplied to testers, and we were immediately impressed by the swanky curves and flashing lights. The interface, which acts like an online desktop, seems to allow a degree of multitasking (or that could just be a lazy way of creating an options menu, who knows?) There are also some shots from the bundled multiplayer card game Tetra Master, used to help test the service. According to the screenshots, the software is at version beta 1.03.00. There are three downloadable MP3s; one from Tetra Master and two from the PlayOnline software. We haven't tried them, but if you are a fan of the works of Naoshi Mizuta and / or Noriko Matsueda, we're sure you will enjoy them! Related Feature - Final Fantasy X preview

Shiny, the Laguna Beach-based development studio made famous by MDK and subsequent action titles Messiah and Sacrifice, could be working on a port of their highly secretive licensed Matrix game for GameCube. A recent advert placed by Dave Perry's illustrious firm sought after experienced coders for an unspecified GameCube project. Cloudchaser Nintendo believes this is tantamount to proof of the existence of a GameCube project at Shiny.

The first World Cyber Games tournament is taking place in Seoul, Korea at the moment, with about 400 players in attendance. A couple of minutes browsing through the various holiday snaps at XSReality reveals plenty about the Korean capital, but next to nothing about the attendees. Given the falling numbers of participants and the apparent lack of spectators, it's perhaps surprising that the World Cyber Games organisation is going to so much expense. There were more players at the i8 LAN Party a couple of months ago at Newbury Racecourse, and the WCG is billed as the gaming Olympics… Official brackets, demos and results are available on the tournament status page, and the numbers speak for themselves. Counter-Strike is the most popular game, with 27 competing countries (each represented by a team of five), with Quake III Arena the most popular tournament for individuals with 60 players. StarCraft and Age of Empires II fall into step shortly behind with about 50 each. Further down is Unreal Tournament with 34 players, followed by a few others and at the bottom of the barrel; Adam Soft's unheard-of Crazy Soccer, with two players and a prize purse of some $10,000. Yes, you did read that right. The really striking thing about the WCG is the spoils. $40,000 for the winning Counter-Strike team, $40,000 for the winning Quake III duellist, and figures as high as $20,000 for runners-up and other tournament winners. The World Cyber Games tournament is receiving press attention from the likes of the BBC, but with attendance figures and prize money apparently heading towards opposite ends of the scale, you have to wonder how much longer professional gaming tournaments will be viable, if they ever were in the first place. At the moment, most of the press attention is either completely ignorant, or akin to rubbernecking at a car crash.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Capcom have signed a deal with THQ's Wireless division to distribute WAP and SMS games based on the Street Fighter brand. "Continual innovation has kept the franchise as fresh and relevant today as it was over a decade ago", THQ Wireless somehow managed to type while keeping a straight face. "The move to wireless platforms will continue this legacy". Quite how you turn a high octane beat 'em up into something that can be played with text messages isn't exactly clear at this stage, but the game is already in development at British company Warthog, and will apparently be available early next year. Rumours that the game's title will be Supr Strt Fitr Dlux Trbo SMS Edtn Gld have yet to be confirmed.

According to a report from trade magazine CTW, French publisher UbiSoft will be taking Take 2 to court in January as part of an on-going dispute over royalties allegedly owed to one of their development studios. Red Storm's games, including the popular Rainbow Six series, were distributed in Europe by Take 2 Interactive until the end of last year, but in the meantime the developer had been bought out by UbiSoft. They claim that Take 2 still owes them around £6.3m, and including interest and legal costs UbiSoft expect the total could reach £7.5m. No doubt we will be hearing more about this once the case gets underway next year...

Somewhere in the aeons dead docklands of eastern London it was lurking; an unnameable presence which spoke of strange gods lulled by the infernal piping of shapeless creatures in the dark voids between worlds. Having consulted the hideously ancient Pnakotic manuscripts, the suppressed Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, the Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred and the press releases of Fishtank Interactive, we had suspected what we might find. No mere words could prepare us for what we found that September day though, and only now can I bring myself to relate what we saw...

Wanadoo's already expansive release schedule looks set to stretch still further, with information and screenshots for three more games reaching us from their UK distributor Koch. First up is Inquisition, which follows the fortunes of the son of an impoverished noble in 14th century France. While in prison for attempted robbery he meets a former Knight Templar who has been tortured by the eponymous religious enforcers with the lovely red uniforms. This dying knight reveals to him the first clue towards the location of the Templar's legendary treasure, setting you on a quest which will apparently include a combination of combat, strategy and platform-inspired sections. Next on the list is Halloween, an off-the-wall platform game starring a pair of trick-or-treating kids dressed up as a witch and a devil. Cue all kinds of haunted house shenanigans as the children find themselves trying to find their way out of locations such as a mysterious mansion, cemetery, laboratory and even a pyramid. Developed for the PlayStation 2, GameCube and GameBoy Advance by Kalisto, the game is due out next autumn, presumably just in time for Halloween itself. Finally there is Curse, an action-adventure game set in Victorian London centering around a missing Egyptian statuette and the curse that surrounds it, causing "madness or violent death" in those who come into contact with it. Now it's up to you to recover the statuette, which was stolen from the British museum, and return it to the pyramid it was originally discovered in. Expect PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game to emerge in Q3 2002.

The NPD Group - a definitive source of market and sales data in the video game industry, according to IGN - has shown that Xbox has the highest game attach rate of any system to date. This means that more games are being bought with the system than the other systems at this point. Chief Xbox Officer Robbie Bach says he "understands why Xbox is the most sought-after gift for the holiday", and why gamers are buying a record 2.4 games with every console. PS2 was selling 1.9 games per console after its first two weeks of sales, and the GameCube is also managing 1.9. With so much bickering over the current sales leader in the States, we're comfortable with the notion that both are selling well, which means a very interesting console market for the next couple of years. Related Feature - Production begins on European Xboxes

The Magic Box is reporting that Sega's GameCube port of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle will feature various new mini games and stages. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was originally thought to be a direct port of the Dreamcast version of Sonic Adventure 2, with added GameBoy Advance functionality for owners of the title on both systems. Now it has emerged that a stage called the High Speed Action Race will be added to the game, including Wagon Race and Chao Karate sub-games. The pictures of Chao Karate on The Magic Box are so cutesy it beggars belief. There will be a versus battle mode, with six characters to choose from: Metal Sonic, Amy, Tical, Chao Walker, Dark Walker and Chaos Zero. Related Feature - Sonic Adventure 2 Dreamcast review

Core Magazine is reporting on an interesting story from the Netherlands. The Dutch government has supposedly blocked the sale of PSone consoles and accessories due to abnormally high levels of cadmium in the devices. Cadmium is used in the production of PSone due to its conductive properties, but overexposure has been linked to severe kidney problems. Customs officials are apparently holding 800,000 pieces of hardware, worth an estimated $162 million. No other country is thought to be withholding PSone consoles at this time.

Nintendo of Japan has selected Dobutsu Bancho, otherwise known as Animal Leader, to compete directly with the launch of Microsoft Xbox. Animal Leader is a game about eating your way to the top of the food chain. With bizarre off-the-wall visuals and a peculiar overall objective, we're not sure it would be our top pick to face Xbox. That said, the Japanese are big fans of horseracing games, so it's impossible to say. The Japanese launch of Xbox will be interesting, to say the least. Its Western reception has been pretty hot so far, but it will have a larger market packed with domestic games to deal with. Generally, Western titles don't sell terribly well in Japan.

Microsoft has issued an unusual release supporting the use of bridge tools like GameSpy Tunnel and XboxGW, stating that "It's amazing and exciting to see the lengths that gamers will go to in order to take their Xbox games online." Namechecking GameSpy specifically (to avoid embarrassment at the propagation of a Linux-based connection tool no doubt), Microsoft explained that "these efforts showcase the superiority of Xbox because it was built from the ground up to provide people with the next generation of exciting online game play." Remember, to go online with Halo or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X for Xbox you need a PC with two network adapters, a broadband Internet connection and an Xbox console, with either a crossover cable to connect PC to Xbox or a full-blown hub. That's rather a lot of equipment. "We think the GameSpy efforts are an interesting science experiment by and for hard core gamers," the statement continues, before acknowledging that the system doesn't really scale for more than two players (because the average amount of bandwidth required is about 256Kbps each way, and that's most people's upstream taken care of in one fell swoop. Microsoft's online service will be more involved, the company tells us. "In order to engage several players, voice, content download, and online support with no PC required, gamers will have to wait for the Xbox online service. And it will be worth it." "Right out of the box, Xbox online will be an always-on, fast-action gaming service that provides multiplayer and episodic gaming, and tournaments that appeal to all types of game players." So it looks like Microsoft are happy to support alternative methods of Internet play in lieu of its own service' arrival, which may not be until sometime in the summer of next year. The public's perception of Xbox as a 'connected' console this early on is clearly very important to Uncle Bill and his chums at Redmond. Microsoft have yet to comment on the various upgrade stories doing the rounds, or those websites ripping the console apart for photo opportunities. Related Feature - Xbox ripped to shreds

One of the more imaginative massively multiplayer games currently in development is Project Entropia, which sports a unique economic system allowing you to convert real world currency into in-game cash and (more importantly) vice versa. With the first two phases of the beta test now complete, the next phase will allow 5000 players from around the world to play havoc with this economy as special items worth one million Project Entropia Dollars (equivalent to about US$100,000 in "real" money) are added into the game. "Participants [will be able] to make real money, possibly even millions of dollars, which makes it absolutely essential that we test the economic system and security measures rigorously", Patric Sundstrom pronounced. "In order to do so, we will ask users to put small amounts of money into the system and offer them the possibility of taking out much more. We're very pleased with the progress of our tests so far, and extremely excited that we will soon begin trials with this vital element." The world's first massively multiplayer pyramid marketing scheme, or a breakthrough in interactive entertainment? We'll have to wait and see, but if you fancy being on the frontline you can apply to take part in the third phase of the beta test here. Related Feature - Project Entropia interview

I've seen enough arguing over whether Tricky is a true sequel to last me until SSX 3, but there is an obvious common thread linking these naysayers; they haven't played it. SSX Tricky is the finest example of a snowboarding game on any system, boasting tweaked control, improved visuals, added aggression and a boatload of new tricks. Arguably there are only two 'new' courses, but you would be a fool to gloss over the changes. There must still be some people who are new to SSX, so allow me to explain briefly what we are dealing with. SSX is a snowboarding game consisting of single and multiplayer races and a World Circuit mode, with two main sections to the latter - Race and Show-off. In Race mode you have to hurl yourself down increasingly elaborate courses, staying ahead of five other riders for three heats per track, whereas in Show-off mode you are all by yourself, with a certain points total to reach and floating snowflake multipliers to grab. You can just direct yourself with the analogue stick, but the idea is to take advantage of some of the series of jumps along the way to pull off mind-blowing tricks and, as the man said, Tricks equals boost: boost equals speed. You perform tricks by jumping at the right time and using a combination of your directional pads to turn in mid-air and the four shoulder buttons to handle different grabs. The boost button takes on the 'tweak' function during jumps, allowing you to pick up maximum points, while careering into a snowflake in mid-air can multiply the score for that jump by two, three or five, depending on the snowflake. Perform enough tricks and your boost bar will start to fill up, allowing you to improve your speed. Power it up the whole way and you can perform a special 'Über' trick, a masterful new addition to Tricky which are activated by holding a shoulder button for two seconds and then tweaking. They consist of anything from breakdancing on the board in mid-air to twirling it around your neck. Über tricks are signature moves, with a certain number per character, and pulling one off is so rewarding that the prospect of playing through the game with every character just to see them all is fine by me.

Telewest has started trials of the PlayStation 2 online today. Speaking in a prepared statement about the trials, which will last into the New Year, Telewest's head of games Tom Cotter explained that "Telewest is investing heavily in the PlayStation 2 service; believe me, this will be multiplayer gaming and broadband access integrated like never before." No firm date has been set for a widespread rollout of the service. Further details of the network will be released next year.

An Australian deckhand was electrocuted while thumbing the controller of a Sony PlayStation when a wave smashed into the boat's wheelhouse. The 19-year old man, Richard Wells, was sitting at a metal table playing with the console when a huge wave broke through the cabin window. The trawler was lying off the southern Queensland coast last week when the incident occurred. Three other crewmembers suffered shocks and burns while trying to rescue Wells from the cabin.

On the 24th of last month, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe sent out a birthday card and a discount voucher to its many registered PlayStation 2 owners, to celebrate the end of the console's first year on the market in Europe. When the PlayStation 2 launched on November 24th 2000, there were approximately 500,000 units available in Europe, approximately 50,000 of them to be found in the UK. They all went to pre-orders, just as their brothers and sisters had done in the USA a month previously. PlayStation 2 was a hot commodity, the follow-up to the enormously successful PlayStation console with the promise of more than double the power, and it sold on the strength of its predecessor's reputation.

A huge number of viruses appear in our mailboxes each day from people who have visited our site and then been infected by one of the many strains of mass-mailing worm which propogate by sending themselves to every e-mail address found in your internet cache and/or address book. So out of self-interest rather than any sense of concern for our readers, we would like to point out that the Quake4demo.exe file currently floating around the net is in fact a virus. The size of the file (it's only 56Kb) should be a dead give-away, not to mention the fact that when you run it a modified version of the Rocket Arena 3 installer pops up, asking if you want to "install Rocket Arena 3 into your Quake 4 directory" along with "the full version of Quake 4". Cunningly, if you click "Next" nothing happens, but if you smell a rat and try to hit the "Cancel" button at this point it installs copies of itself into your Windows directory, modifies your registry, and proceeds to overwrite exe files and mail itself to everybody in your address book. And if that includes us, we won't be impressed...

War is hell. Even more annoying though is coming home from a war to discover that one of your advisors has taken control of your kingdom, stolen your girl and started drilling holes in the ground in an attempt to raise an army of the dead. Just such a fate lies in store for Maximo, and needless to say he is somewhat miffed when he discovers these changes. Dropping in on the evil usurper Achille to exchange a few sharp words, things soon get out of hand, and in the ensuing scuffle Maximo is mortally wounded.

Despite their widespread appearance in computer games and anime cartoons, the idea of using giant robots to wage war is pretty silly when you stop to think about it. And at the very height of daftness are Transformers, the amusingly dubbed "robots in disguise" which spawned an extensive range of cartoon series, animated movies and action figures in a fit of near-Pokemon scale marketing insanity during the 1980s.

The collapse of high profile online gaming companies such as Barrysworld and Gameplay earlier this year has apparently done nothing to dent enthusiasm for the field here in the UK, with Telewest's blueyonder gaming portal first past the post. Today it was the turn of BTopenworld to throw their hat into the ring, with the launch of their new Games Domain service. Having acquired the website last month from former owners theglobe.com, BT will be relaunching it as a fully fledged online gaming provider. Features will include dedicated servers for a host of popular titles, a selection of web games such as chess for more casual gamers, and a matchmaking service for popular peer-to-peer games. Details were rather thin on the ground at this stage though and the rather brief presentation would have been even briefer had the computer projecting the flashy intro movie into the auditorium not crashed, prompting some frenzied rebooting and a long embarrassed silence. There was very little of Games Domain actually on show in the demonstration area afterwards either, despite the fact that free trials for the service are about to begin, and none of the people we spoke to seemed to be able to give a straight answer to any of our (admittedly awkward) questions. One of the slides in the presentation had claimed that Games Domain will be the first place on this side of the pond to play PlayStation 2 games over broadband internet connections, which came as something of a surprise given that Telewest are supposed to be working with Sony Europe to trial exactly this kind of technology. There were also vague mentions of cross-platform gaming, but unfortunately nobody seemed to be able to clarify or confirm any of this, with one senior tech bod telling us that online console gaming was something they were looking into for next year. BTopenworld are also promising exclusive mods for the service, but again there was no real explanation as to how this will work or what kind of original content we can expect. All we do know is that the group behind Quake 3 Fortress are involved, and that judging from the screenshots on the press disc we can probably look forward to Quake 3 and Counter-Strike maps emblazoned with Games Domain banners. And there was no word on what BTopenworld will be doing to improve the performance of their broadband network, which to date has proven somewhat unreliable for gamers thanks to packet loss and high contention ratios. Apparently they are investigating the problem, but we couldn't get any specifics. Then there's the question of the price. The trials are due to end in January, and after that punters will be expected to pony up £9.99 a month for the privilege of using Games Domain, even if they are already subscribed to BTopenworld's expensive ADSL service. A "limited amount of free content" will continue to be available for penny pinchers, but as you might have guessed it's not clear yet what that will include. Given the notorious unwillingness of hardcore gamers to actually pay for anything, you have to wonder how much of an audience those exclusive mods are going to have... Related Feature - Telewest launch gaming service

The PlayStation 2's footy cabinet is pretty well stocked at the moment. What with This is Football 2002 in Sony's corner and EA's massive FIFA Football 2002, Konami have their work cut out for them this Christmas. But they really shouldn't worry - Pro Evolution Soccer is without a doubt the best football game on any console. Ever. (Okay, maybe not better than Sensi, but give me a break.) Ignore the less than authoritative database of player names, team names and strips, the lack of player endorsements and other paraphernalia, and the silly little oversights like the 'Europian Cup': PES is the only game out there that actually feels like football at the moment, and not some sort of bizarre combination of ballet and opera. Yes we're looking at you now, EA. PES captures the spirit of the game, and by the time you're passing the ball about in midfield and threading dainty through-balls between defenders, the lacklustre presentation will be long since forgotten. There are a number of things that set PES apart from the likes of FIFA in its approach to the beautiful game. FIFA has long been the home of extravagant trick moves like Cruyff turns, overhead kicks and ridiculous shimmies. PES has a close control mode, activated by R2, that lets you perform trick moves but they require split-second timing to execute. In other words, you need skills. Another thing that sets the game apart from its competition is its approach to goalscoring. In games like FIFA it's pretty damn easy to score from any position goalside of the centre circle by hammering the sprint key and twiddling your player every which way past opponents, but if you score in PES it's because you deserved to score. Slotting a through-ball into empty space demands that you have created some empty space ahead of time, and shooting is completely unassisted - you have to get the angle, height and power behind the shot absolutely right. Other games may have dabbled with power bars, but I defy you to name even one that offers as much control over your actions as Pro Evolution Soccer.

The Independent Game Developers Association is launching its Student Scholarship Program for a second year, offering 25 lucky people a Classic Pass to the next Game Developers Conference in San Jose. Normally this pass would set you back some $1295, which is equivalent to about 600 cheap pints down at the student union bar or 185 all-you-can-eat pig-outs at that dodgy curry house round the corner. Well worth the effort of entering then, I'm sure you'll agree. The only bad news is that even if you win you will still have to pay your own travel and hotel expenses. The scholarship program is open to college and university students from around the world who will be over 18 years old when the conference starts in mid-March. You will also need to be a member of the IGDA, but you can sign up for a year's student membership for just $25. All entries must be in by January 7th, and applications will be judged by the likes of id Software's resident Brit Graeme Devine and Ray Muzyka of BioWare fame. For more details, head over to the IGDA website.

UbiSoft's licensing bandits have struck again, this time stealing publishing rights for the next installment in the Alex Ferguson's Player Manager series from under the noses of 3DO. The deal with developers Anco Software will see UbiSoft handling next year's Player Manager 2002 on PC, PSX and PS2, with the first two due out in the spring and the latter at the end of next year. Promised features include a bigger database featuring the latest information on 35,000 players, 500 teams and their key management staff. How this will stack up against the might of Championship Manager, which is entering the console market with an Xbox outing in the spring, remains to be seen. Related Feature - UbiSoft's Angels