Round-Up: New Sega Arcade Board, EA's Grammy Pro Sessions, PSP European, Oceania Launch

Author: by Nich Maragos, Brandon Sheffield

Today's round-up includes a new Sega-originating arcade platform, EA's effort to bring game music to the fore, and the launch of the PSP in the European and Oceania territories. - Sega unveiled its new Lindbergh arcade board in the pages of Weekly Famitsu. Unlike the previous Chihiro board, which was based on the specifications of the Xbox, the Lindbergh system is platform-neutral and should prove easier to port to all next-generation consoles. The board has a 3GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 1GB of RAM, an Nvidia-produced GPU, and built-in capabilities for LAN play along with USB controller slots and DVD-ROM based media. Upcoming arcade games intended for the Lindbergh hardware are Afterburner, House of the Dead 4, Power Smash 3, Virtua Fighter 5, and a new project titled Psy-Phi from legendary creator Yu Suzuki. - Electronic Arts and the Grammy Foundation have announced an education program called Grammy Pro Session: Video Game Music and Sound Design. The series will present talks by video game composers and producers, including EA LA's Neil Young and Michael Giacchino, composer for Medal of Honor and The Incredibles. The first session will be presented in Los Angeles and be open to L.A.-area students. Additional sessions are scheduled for later in the year in Orlando, FL, Vancouver, B.C., San Francisco, CA, and Chicago, IL. - The PSP has launched in Australia, with a full European continent and UK launch scheduled for tomorrow. $399 Australian dollars ($301) gets you a PSP in Oceania, 249 euros ($307) in Europe, and 179 pounds ($323) in the UK. At least in Europe and the UK, the system will launch with 32 titles, the highest number of games at launch in the history of consoles. Also updated today, product news including iZotope's annoucement of an academic plug-in bundle, and FaceFX's pledged use of Fonix VoiceIn technology, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings from companies including Donnerwood Media, Edge of Reality, HopeLab, NaturalMotion, Pandemic Studios Australia, Rainbow Studios, Rockstar San Diego, Splash Damage, THQ, and Ubisoft's Shanghai Studio.