Saturday, May 15, 2010

Aion 1.9 & 2.0 Announced release dates

Although the folks at NCwest have said that they are still working toward a May release for 1.9, their beloved parent company NCsoft had this to share last Friday. :o

Release dates for Aion 1.9 & 2.0!

Whilst we still await seeing 1.9 on the PTS, NCsoft announced via their Q1 2010 quarterly earnings report call that their global plan is to release patch 1.9 in June-August 2010, followed by patch 2.0 in September-October. They also confirmed that for each release, NA/EU will be implemented ahead of other Asian territories. This means that, for example, although some territories will see 1.9 as late as August, we can expect to get our paws on it much earlier.

Our own community team from NCwest have confirmed to us that they are still working toward a May release date for aion 1.9, so there is certainly hope on the horizon for the next few weeks.

If you would like to know more about the quarterly earnings call, you can download the English translation of the call here and listen to it, but be warned it is 30 minutes long!

Highlights from the call:

"Aion was down 21% quarter on quarter but up 67% year on year. As opposed to a solid domestic user base, Aion in overseas markets experienced the decline of active accounts resulting from natural decline and massive elimination. However, we could expect some recovery soon because content updates such as 1.9 and 2.0 are scheduled in May and the third quarter respectively."

"In terms of the overseas update schedule, the 1.9 update will be from June to August so it will depend on the territory. We are planning to update 1.9 in the EU/US first then in other asian territories afterwards."

"As for the 2.0 update, it will be sometime in the fall so we are looking for sometime then between September and October and also, it's the same, we will probably begin to update it in the EU/US and the Asian countries afterwards."

"As for the Aion performance in the Western market, I should have mentioned that the number of active users has declined since the launch of the retail package in September and October last year. But I'm also very confident that at this point EU/US is able to maintain the current level of active users and since we're expecting the 1.9 update soon, and also 2.0 in the third quarter."

"Probably we'll also be able to reactivate the dormant users, because we have a huge err...the amount of dormant users who are just waiting for the improvement in game design and game play, and also the new content. We will be able to provide those new changes with new content in 1.9 and 2.0 so we'll be focusing on reactivating those dormant accounts at this point. I regret that we are not able to provide any specific figures on our game operation."

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