Yu-Gi-Oh!™ ONLINE DUEL EVOLUTION exceeds 14 million duels in Germany!

Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH has announced that more than 14 million duels have taken place by German users within its ever-popular Yu-Gi-Oh! ONLINE DUEL EVOLUTION title for PC.

The figure represents an incredible take-up within Yu-Gi-Oh! fans since the game's initial launch in April 2005. Within this period, Yu-Gi-Oh! ONLINE DUEL EVOLUTION has established itself as one of the most successful online-games for kids and teenagers, with Germany leading the way in Europe in terms of registered users.

Yu-Gi-Oh! ONLINE DUEL EVOLUTION is a perfect recreation of the official Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game and designed to allow keen duellists to take on like-minded friends online. Users can play against fans from all over the world, and the PC title contains all the cards and rules of the popular Trading Card Game. Through a simple yet effective point'n'click-interface players compete in duels against each other or swap cards, using traps and spells to attack and counter moves made by their opponent.

Support from German Yu-Gi-Oh! fans has been immense since launch, with visitors to www.yugioh-online.net and the game's online duels proving to be best represented and most persistent duellists among the many hundred of thousands registered users across Europe. Courtesy of the game's standardised rules, duels are also possible despite language borders, with matches hosted between participants from New Zealand, Belgium, Sweden and Korea amongst others. So popular has the online duelling become that over 75 million Yu-Gi-Oh! duels have played worldwide.

"The growing popularity of Yu-Gi-Oh! ONLINE DUEL EVOLUTION is incredible," said Martin Schneider, Sales and Marketing Director Germany of Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH. "Yu-Gi-Oh! fans can play and communicate with each other without having to overcome noteworthy frontiers, and these aspects reflect the fascinating social component of the Trading Card Game."

Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH is set to continue expanding the successful series, too, with the advent of the new DUELPASS The Lost Guardian. This will add a wealth of new cards including all-new trap cards, monsters and magic spells to players' Yu-Gi-Oh! strategies, further expanding the gameplay and the possibilities it affords.

Konami will be releasing the next DUELPASS in time for the busy Christmas season. This will also greatly extend the online game and throw up lots of new challenges - even for the most hardened duel professionals. For every new DUELPASS, new DUELPASS packaging will be published and available via retail to allow the players to take part in a fixed number of duels via www.yugioh-online.net.

® 1996 KAZUKI TAKAHASHI

® 2004 NAS TV TOKYO

For more information, please contact Steve Merrett at Voltage PR on 020 7903 5122 or email steve@voltagepr.com.