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Webzen and Nvidia hook up

by: Chuck -
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This is what happens when you have booths so close together at E3. The companies go out after the show, get drunk, and then hook up. It looks like Nvidia and Webzen are the lucky companies this year as they announced that they Webzen will be joining Nvidia's "The way it's meant to be played program". This means a cool Nvidia animation before you play Huxley when ever it comes out. Not a bad thing, I just hope they don't regret it in the morning.
NVIDIA, WEBZEN FORM NEW TECHNICAL AND MARKETING RELATIONSHIP

WEBZEN’s MMORPG SUN to be included in NVIDIA
“The Way It’s Meant To Be Played” Program


ELECTRONIC ENTERTAINMENT EXPO—LOS ANGELES, CA—May 19, 2005 — NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA), a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors, and WEBZEN Inc. (NASDAQ: WZEN), a leading global online entertainment developer and publisher, today announced a joint technical and marketing relationship that will support WEBZEN’s upcoming 3D massively, multi-player, online, role-playing game (MMORPG) titles for the PC platform. WEBZEN’s highly-anticipated Sun will be part of the NVIDIA “The Way It’s Meant To Be Played” program, and is debuting in the WEBZEN booth at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Additionally, a stage event will take place every day at 10:30AM in WEBZEN’s booth, #700 in the South Hall, to demonstrate how the two companies will be working together. All PCs used for the demonstration at WEBZEN’s booth will be equipped with NVIDIA® GeForce 6 Series graphics processors.

To maximize the stunning visuals along with the compatibility, stability, and reliability of the games developed by WEBZEN using NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs), the companies will engage in a joint development and compatibility testing program. In addition, WEBZEN and NVIDIA will work closely to implement graphical enhancements that will utilize the advanced features found in the award-winning line of NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series processors and beyond. Joint promotions will also be initiated in an effort to raise the awareness level of each company’s products.

“As a company that is dedicated in transforming the computing experience, we are always eager to work with developers who are as passionate about graphics as we are,” said Mark Daly, vice president of content development at NVIDIA. “Combining our graphics know-how with WEBZEN creative talents will result in games that raise the bar in the online gaming space.”

“WEBZEN is very pleased to be working with the world’s market and technology leader in graphics processors,” said Dae Chun Park, Chief Marketing Officer of WEBZEN, Inc. “By adopting NVIDIA GPUs as part of our reference development platform and working with their experts in 3D graphics, we are confident that our upcoming games will remain at the cutting-edge of 3D technology, resulting in games that are bound to excite even the most demanding game players.”

About WEBZEN
Based in Seoul, Korea, WEBZEN Inc. has become a global leader in the MMOG market, and has developed some of the world’s top online game and client/server technologies. Already having achieved critical mass in Asian markets with publishing divisions in Taiwan, China, Japan and Thailand, WEBZEN Inc. has established WEBZEN America, a wholly-owned US subsidiary based in Los Angeles. WEBZEN America leverages WEBZEN technology and partners with some of the most well-known names in the video games industry to deliver some of the most compelling, visually stunning graphics available in persistent world games. WEBZEN and WEBZEN America are poised to launch a diverse portfolio of online products and services, beginning with the highly anticipated MMORPG SUN, the Unreal 3.0 engine-based MMOFPS Huxley, and the original action MMOG All Points Bulletin (APB).

For more information about WEBZEN Inc., go to www.webzen.com .

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA Corporation is a worldwide leader in graphics and digital media processors. The Company's products enhance the end-user experience on consumer and professional computing devices. NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs), media and communications processors (MCPs), and wireless media processors (WMPs) have broad market reach and are incorporated into a variety of platforms, including consumer and enterprise PCs, notebooks, workstations, PDAs, mobile phones, and video game consoles. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and employs more than 2,100 people worldwide. For more information, visit the Company's Web site at www.nvidia.com .

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, the benefits and outcomes of the technical and marketing relationship between NVIDIA and WEBZEN, and the characteristics, performance and capabilites of the games developed by WEBZEN using NVIDIA products, are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, continued development of the gaming industry, acceptance of new games, products and technologies by the market and online gamers, delays in ramping new products into production, manufacturing defects, incompatibility of technologies, software defects, reliance on third-party manufacturers, the impact of competitive products and pricing alternatives, NVIDIA dependence on third-party developers and publishers and other risks detailed from time to time in the NVIDIA reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-K for its fiscal year ended January 30, 2005. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.