Gaming News - April 2006

San Francisco, CA (April 25, 2006) - SEGA today announced that Virtua Tennis 3 is in development by AM2 Studios for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

From SEGA:

The Virtua Tennis series has been well-received by critics and fans for its "ease of play but difficult to master" gameplay. With Virtua Tennis 3, the series returns with enhanced photo-realistic graphics and advanced player animations that perfectly match the behavior and mannerisms of individual professional athletes. Next-generation systems allow gamers to see the most detailed expressions on the faces of their selected players as they battle to win heated tournaments around the world. Improvements to the game's AI have also upped the challenge to becoming the top seed of the tennis world.

"The familiar depth of the Virtua Tennis franchise returns with improvements that can only be fully realized on next-gen systems," said Scott A. Steinberg, Vice President of Marketing, SEGA of America, Inc. "Great pick-up and playability, life-like details, and incredible physics are benchmarks of the series and will make Virtua Tennis 3 the standard by which all tennis games are judged."

In Career Mode, gamers will travel the world and take on the biggest stars of the tennis world. Improvements to the Player Creation Mode allow gamers to customize their own tennis star with a wealth of licensed tennis equipment and increased detail like never before.

No Virtua Tennis title would be complete without the popular and addictive mini-games, and Virtua Tennis 3 is no exception. In addition to the popular mini-games from previous titles used to sharpen players' skills, there will be a whole host of brand new games to keep players in top form.

Virtua Tennis 3 is due for release on the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 in Spring 2007.