Phantasy Star Zero has arrived!

As the game ships across the country, we’re celebrating the launch of PSZ with the announcement of our first big event, new avatars, and a Rappy T-shirt giveaway!

Our first PSZ Event: Play with SEGA!

Want to team up with the folks at SEGA and run through some dungeons? This is your chance to run with those of us in San Francisco – no matter where you live – and score some sweet Visual Chat (and maybe exclusive items!) at the same time!

When: Tuesday, November 17th from 4:00 – 6:00 PM Pacific!

Who: Anyone with a copy of Phantasy Star Zero!

How to join: Be among the first to post your friend code in the comments when we post the Event Blog next Monday! We have room for at least 30 or so people, and might even take that higher if community response is high!

New Phantasy Star Zero avatars!

Also to celebrate today’s launch, we’ve added a whole new set of Phantasy Star Zero avatars to the forums! These avatars can be selected in your User CP and instantly applied to your account! Today we’ve added avatars for the following classes and characters:

Classes:

• HUcaseal
• FOnewm

Story Characters

• Sarisa
• Kai
• Reve

Check them out on the SEGA boards, and use them here on the PSZ Forum!

Check out the official Rappy T-shirt!

Bask in its glory! The Rappy T-shirt is now revealed, and we know what’s going through your mind right now - something to the tune of: Can I have one?

We’re going to be giving these shirts away to a number of SEGA Community and Fansites for PSZ cross-promotions, including special chances to win them for Phantasy Star Universe subscribers on PC/PS2 and Xbox 360! In the days to come, keep your eyes peeled for all sorts of cool ways to snag your very own limited edition (and super rare) Rappy T-shirt!

How excited are you guys for Phantasy Star Zero? Let loose all that built up excitement in the comments below, and keep on checking your local game stores – PSZ is here!

On the Block

Item 1: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games Poster

Congrats to our winner, eko0724!

Item 2: Planet 51 Soundtrack and Dippin’ Dots gift certificate

Congrats to our winner, Turtle502!

Item 3:  Sonic Riders Zero Gravity Soundtrack

Congrats to our winner @Jayx77!

Item 4: Sonic T-Shirt (size medium)

Congrats to our winner @lucasbean!

Item 5: Sonic Jacket (size large)

Contrats to our winner @V_Ben!

Item 6: Phantasy Star Zero Prize Pack: inflatable rappy, PSZ strategy guide, PSZ t-shirt (winner chooses size from S – XL)

Congrats to our winner, @AEVande!

How it Works

1. You must be following us on Twitter to be eligible. (If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can create one by going to http://www.twitter.com and click the green “get started — join!” button in the center of the page.)
2. At random times on Friday, we will announce the prize we are giving away, and what number of response you need to be to win. Send us a direct message (DM) via Twitter and be that number to win the prize. (@ replies do not count as entries!)
3. All followers are eligible to win all prizes, unless a restriction is noted. Restrictions are usually due to the prize being region-locked. For example, US games that won’t work on UK gaming systems. There may also be age restrictions due to the rating of the game.
4. We will announce the winner on our Twitter feed once eligibility is confirmed.

Make Sure We’re Following You on Twitter

If you are currently following us on Twitter, please be sure that we are following you as well. You can do this by making sure that SEGA is in your “followers” list, or by going to DoesFollow and typing SEGA in the first blank, your Twitter username in the second, and pressing the “check” button. You can reverse this to be sure that you are following us. If you are following us, but we’re not following you, please send a message to @SEGA and we will follow you. This is important, because only people we follow can send us direct messages (DMs), and DMs are the only way to enter the giveaways.

How to Send Direct Messages on Twitter

There are a few ways to send us a Direct Message on Twitter. The easiest way is to go to our Twitter page and select “message” under the “Actions” heading in the side bar. If you do not see “message”, this means that we are not following you. Please send a message to @sega to let us know, and we will follow you. When you click “message” you will be taken to a window where you can type a message and press send.

You may also select the “direct messages” tab from your Twitter homepage, and select SEGA from the drop-down menu at the top of the page. Again, if you don’t see our name there, it’s probably because we’re not following you. Let us know, and we’ll follow you.

There are also many Twitter clients that you can use instead of using the website. These include TweetDeck, Twitteriffic, Tweetie, and Twhirl. Each of these programs works differently, so you’ll want to figure out how to send a direct message on the program you use. If you want to send us a test message, we’ll let you know if we received it or not.