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Sony Online Entertainment is planning to make some major changes to the Jedi system in its Star Wars-themed online role-playing game.

Sony Online Entertainment has recently announced via its Station.com Web site that it is planning to make some major changes to the Jedi system in Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. Following discussions with players it has been decided that a number of changes are necessary, and these will be implemented gradually over the coming months. The first changes to be phased in aim to alleviate some of the short term discomfort with gameplay, and will appear in the upcoming Publish 6.

News source: GameSpot

Sadler said the company expects DRAM unit shipments would increase as much as 18 percent in 2004, on top of an 11 percent rise in the prior year while content growth would be in the range of 30 to 50 percent driven by a resurgence in the corporate market.

Said Sadler, "2003 was a good year for memory content due to [Microsoft] Windows XP deployment, broadband demand and strong consumer PC sales but we are also beginning to see an increase from the business market."

Another strong growth area for memory suppliers is the wireless handset market where a combination of huge volume — more than 500 million units per year #151; and rising memory content, which Sadler puts at 16 Mb per phone today, is raising optimism in the industry.

"You've got memory growth, camera phone growth and high number," Sadler said. "Cellphones will undoubtedly be the key growth in future."

In his own presentation at the conference, Bill Stover, Micron's vice president and chief financial officer, said the company's capital expenditure would increase in 2004 to a range of $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion from approximately $1.1 billion in 2003.

Stover estimated total global DRAM capital expenditures rose to $6 billion in 2003 from $5 billion in 2002. Capital expenditure in the industry has fallen from as high as $20 billion 1996 and $9 billion at the height of the last industry expansion in 2000.