Author: Quazal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MONTRÉAL, CANADA - March 21st, 2006 - Quazal, the leading independent provider of online multiplayer components for PCs and consoles games, today announces the availability of Quazal Spark!, a comprehensive new 'lobby in a box' for PC and console development.

Spark! provides online game developers and publishers with a rapid implementation for their lobby and matchmaking features. Targeting cross-platform parity, Quazal Spark! ships with completed implementations of most sought after features for online gaming. This includes all aspects of authentication, friends list, matchmaking and statistics reporting in a complete, skinnable UI flow, as well as full error handling.

"Quazal Spark! represents the culmination of a lot of development over the past year," stated Martin Lavoie, CTO at Quazal. "Taking suggestions and input from a wide variety of developer and publishers, we developed this product to meet the needs of the vast majority of games, targeting the most popular features of competition and community."

Spark! provides a fast and easy way for developers to get their lobby up and running early in development, meaning that they can focus on more advanced features as ways to differentiate their game in the marketspace. While Spark! eases the burden of online developers, it in no way stifles their creativity and their ability to implement unique online features in their lobby.

"End users like consistency and a good, solid set of features. Developers like things that are easy to use, but still flexible, and publishers like technology that is very low-risk, and cross-platform," stated Mike Drummelsmith, Developer Relations Manager at Quazal. "With Quazal Spark!, we have provided a product that satisfies the needs of all of these groups. It's going to be very, very big."

Quazal will be unveiling Spark! in booth #644 at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, March 22nd to 24th. Any interested parties are encouraged to contact [email protected] in order to arrange a meeting, or to simply stop by the booth to learn more about our products.

Pricing and Availability

Quazal Spark! is currently included with a license of Quazal Rendez-Vous, and is available immediately for licensing by interested developers and publishers for Microsoft Windows and home console systems. Quazal Net-Z, including the SyncSim and Voice extensions, is also available for all platforms. Interested parties can reach Quazal at [email protected] for further information on pricing. Visit http://www.quazal.com/ for more details.

About Quazal

Quazal is the leading supplier of multiplayer middleware solutions for the entertainment industry. World-class publishers such as Atari, Capcom, Crave, Eidos, JoWooD, THQ and Ubisoft are joining the ranks of dozens of studios and independent developers that use Quazal's products to propel the next generation of multiplayer games. In 2000, Quazal revolutionized network programming by rendering obsolete the traditional packet/socket paradigm. In 2005, Quazal launched a fully featured lobby service, widely regarded as the most innovative and flexible offering on the market. Quazal's products are currently available for "PlayStation2", "PSPTM"("PlayStationPortable), "PLAYSTATION3", Xbox, Xbox 360, Windows, Pocket PC, and Linux. For more information and demonstrations visit http://www.quazal.com.

Quazal and Net-Z are trademarks of Quazal. "PlayStation" is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "Xbox" is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Other company and product names may be either registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

Press Contact

Quazal

Mike Drummelsmith

(514) 395-4646 x235

[email protected]