The award winning Age of Booty just got even better - and for free!

For those of you with the Xbox Live version of Age of Booty, you'll find yourself treated to an automatic title update the next time you launch the game.  One of the key features of this update is that Age of Booty now supports Avatars.

There's just nothing quite like watching your friends walk the plank after you've kicked their arses!

A couple other key upgrades to Age of Booty come with this update:

* Party Chat support

* Idle players get kicked out of matchmaking games and are replaced by AI opponents.

* All those free DLC maps we released a while back are now part of the matchmaking rotation.  Trial players are also treated to all these DLC maps.

So sign yourself on, check out the Party Chat features, see your Avatar in the game, and enjoy the fresh map rotation now with twice as many maps as before!

March 25^th, 2009 marks the spot.

As Snow mentioned in an earlier blog, the PSN version of Age of Booty now has Trophy Support, and this is for both North American and European territories.  Just launch the game on your PS3 and the trophy patch applies itself.

We’re not stopping with trophy support.  There’s more booty where that came from. The PSN Trial also released today in North America and releases in one week, March 12^th, in Europe.  To you PSN users who have not yet given Age of Booty a try, the trial is free - you no longer have an excuse!

Oh, and this is the REAL trial; the official one; the one we designed for you to play.  An unauthorized version accidentally released in Europe back in November when the full version went live and it caused a lot of problems for everyone.  All players worldwide were affected as the trial allows for multiplayer matchmaking.  The trial released today (and next week in Europe) works the way it is supposed to.

But wait, there's even more...  The PC version releases tomorrow.  You'll see it first on Steam, Direct2Drive, and Digital River/Capcom Store and others as quickly as we can, hopefully getting them all this month.  The PC Demo will likely arrive next week on all those same sites.

Last and certainly not least, let's not forget about NXE Avatar Support.  Msft has the build in test right now.  We passed the tougher of the two tests.  We should pass the other and receive Msft approval any day now, at which point we can immediately push it live to you (via free Title Update) any day now.

PS – Additional Map Packs will appear weekly on PSN again later this month.

Sony America and Sony Europe have approved the Age of Booty Trophy Patch.  All this free booty is sailing towards a PSN connection near you.  Date for a North America/Europe release to be announced soon.

Bronze - Cartographer
Create and save a custom map.

Bronze - Bombs Away
Destroy a neutral or enemy town’s defense with a bomb.

Bronze - Flushed Away
Use a whirlpool curse to teleport an enemy that is attacking your town.

Bronze - Cherry Picker
Capture a neutral town after the enemy has destroyed its defenses.

Bronze - Boom Boom
Sink two enemy ships with a single bomb.

Bronze - On the Account
Beat all medium challenges.

Silver - Freebooter
Beat all hard challenges.

Gold - King’s Pardon
Beat every challenge in the game.

Bronze - Sea Legs
Win 5 public games online.

Gold - Old Salt
Win 50 public games online.

The new PC Gaming Alliance web site design has launched, which pleases me greatly since I helped to define what it was going to be and how it was to be designed. You'll note that Will from Dark Void is there on the top level, looking like the pimp he is.

So a few things about the site and recent happenings within the PCGA itself. First, there's a little editorial from me explaining why Capcom has joined the PCGA and why in particular I've been so active within it. In case you've missed it, I've been named to the board of directors.

Hovakim asked some PCGA questions about how things work from a meetings standpoint within the organization that I took a stab at in the Ask Capcom forum.