PRESS RELEASE - Black Bean sign Alfa Romeo Rights to develop

[Typhoon]

VARESE, ITALY – 24th January, 2005 – Black Bean announced today that it has signed an exclusive deal with Alfa Romeo to develop a racing videogame based on the prestigious Italian car brand.

Black Bean's acquisition of the worldwide Alfa Romeo rights underlines its determination to make an impact in the world of multiplatform videogame development and publishing. The Alfa Romeo brand is well-known and synonymous of stylish sport cars.

The game is being developed by award winning developer Milestone, critically acclaimed for its Screamer franchise, the Superbike series published by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports brand and the recently released Racing Evoluzione, an Xbox exclusive game published by Atari.

S.C.A.R. – Squadra Corse Alfa Romeo (this is the title of the game) is in development for the PS2, Xbox, PC platforms and Mobile and will be released in the second quarter of 2005.

"We are thrilled to be working with such a strong brand", said Marco Minoli, Head of Marketing at Black Bean. "Italy is traditionally a country with a few number of companies working on the development and publishing segment; our intention is to create synergy with local strengths, such as car design and styling and prestigious brand like Alfa Romeo which have a high level of awareness both nationally and internationally".

"Working on S.C.A.R. with Alfa Romeo is really exciting", said Antonio Farina, Milestone's President, "it is in fact a dream come true for us: to combine the leading-edge of Italian technology both in real life racing and in simulation to produce a game which celebrates the Italian leadership in driving; Alfa Romeo is not only a winning company nowadays (being one of the leading brands in the World Touring Car Championship, ndr), but a glorious brand from the early years of racing, and this will be reflected in the game".

"Driving an Alfa Romeo", said Hans Hoegstedt, head of Marketing and Communication in Alfa Romeo, "is not like driving an ordinary car in an ordinary context. It is pure driving desire turned into a car which is also the expression of one's personality. When you are in the driving seat, your hands on the leather steering wheel, you are at one with your Alfa Romeo: the road before your eyes, the tyres's grip on the road, your heart beating at the same rpm of your engine."

"This new alliance with Black Bean, allows us to offer our clients as well as all those who share our passion for driving the chance to re-live the unique experience of being at the steering wheel of an Alfa Romeo"

For further informations
Stefano Petrullo
Senior Account Manager
Pulsar Communication srl
tel: +39 (0)332 874 375
@: s.petrullo@pulsarsrl.com

Black Bean is the games label of Lago Srl, which is part of the Leader Group. Leader SpA has been the leading independent distributor in Italy since it started business in 1984. Leader is based in Gazzada (Varese) which is situated 30 miles north of Milan in northern Italy.

Black Bean philosophy is to focus on a wide range of games genre leveraging on an friendly gameplay, additional contents and fully localised products in order to give the player an immersive and addictive gaming experience.

Milestone was founded on 1996 in Milan, by Antonio Farina.
The company's first products were the successful Screamer series of driving games published on the Virgin Interactive label.
In the following years Milestone has specialised in the production of racing simulations and has rapidly become the most successful games developer in Italy.

Until 2001 Milestone has developed, exclusively for Electronic Arts, under the EA Sports brand, the officially licensed simulation of the Superbike World Championship, which became the best motorbike racing simulator ever. In 2003 Milestone completed its first console title, with the critically acclaimed Racing Evoluzione (Apex in the US), developed exclusively for the Xbox and launched by Atari.