AWN Headline News

Sony Computer Entertainment has spun off PlayStation.com as a separate arm of the mega-firm to handle the company's online game initiatives. The Foster City, California-based division will oversee Sony's e-commerce and online distribution of Sony's games, music and movies. On Tuesday, January 30, 2001, the Website will begin to sell the tough-to-obtain PlayStation 2 gaming console. There are already plans in the works to spin the division off in a public stock offering or tracking stock.

EM.TV & Merchandising's supervisory board has announced that it is still debating whether to accept or reject German media conglomerate KirchGroup's financial rescue offer. The deal would give Kirch a 25% voting share in EM.TV and half of the company's 50% stake in Formula One racing group SLEC. In addition, Kirch would buy out EM.TV's half of kids television rights group Junior TV for US$550 million in cash. However, recently another offer has come onto the table for EM.TV. Herbert Kloiber's Tele-Munchen Group and U.S.

A re-mastered version of the anime classic AKIRA is coming to theaters in the U.S. Long Beach, California-based Pioneer Entertainment, a top U.S. anime licensing company, is putting US$1 million into restoring the 1988 sci-fi epic. International Video Conversations is re-mastering and re-mixing the audio in Dolby Digital AC3 Surround Sound. In addition, the film will contain a new English dub created from a fresh translation of the Japanese script. Pioneer will release this restored version on DVD and VHS in the fourth quarter.

AWN's Web Animation Guide is the place for what's new on the Net. In this week's installment three Webisodes of MONKEYBONE, Oscar nominated short MORE and much, much more!

Get your Web Animation Guide here!

Also every week AWN's associate editor Rick DeMott highlights what he thinks is the top new toon in cyberspace in "Rick's Picks!"

Read Rick's Pick! For Friday, January 26, 2001