Today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Ubisoft announced the development of NARUTO™: The Broken Bond, the sequel to NARUTO™: Rise of a Ninja and the second game under the licensing agreement with TV TOKYO Corporation and SHUEISHA Inc. NARUTO™: The Broken Bond, a game based on the world-renowned Naruto anime series, is exclusive to the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, and will be available in North America, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan for Christmas 2008.

Building on the success of Ubisoft’s Naruto™: Rise of a Ninja, this sequel features Naruto, who has now evolved into a well-respected Ninja, but his new status and abilities trigger the envy of his best friend and Ninja teammate, Sasuke. The enemy of the village, Orochimaru, takes advantage of the situation and convinces Sasuke to leave his friends and village in order to join his evil clan and become more powerful. With the help of his Ninja friends, Naruto goes on a quest to retrieve Sasuke and save him. NARUTO™: The Broken Bond is also the only Naruto video game, other than Naruto™: Rise of a Ninja that features an online multiplayer mode which allows players to compete against others in an online tournament mode.

“Featuring vibrant and imaginatively detailed settings, NARUTO™: The Broken Bond will take players on an epic journey through an accurately recreated Naruto world,” said Christian Salomon, vice president of worldwide licensing at Ubisoft. We’re excited to continue in the Naruto™: Rise of a Ninja tradition, boasting the only video game in the franchise that features an online multiplayer mode that lets players compete against their friends in tournaments over the Xbox LIVE®, online entertainment network, and also gives players the opportunity to relive genuine moments of the anime, while exploring the open universe of Naruto.”

About NARUTO:
First introduced in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in Japan in 1999, NARUTO, created by Masashi Kishimoto, quickly became that country’s most popular ninja manga (graphic novel) targeting tweens and teens and has sold more than 80 million copies to-date. Today, Naruto is considered one of the most popular animated series in Japan’s history and has achieved immense success not only as a manga and TV series, but also in the realm of licensed categories such as toys, trading card games and video games. NARUTO enjoys further widespread domestic success where it debuted as the best selling manga title in North America. The manga series (also published by VIZ Media) has now sold over three million copies to-date in the US and regularly appears on USA Today’s Bestseller list and Bookscan’s Graphic Novel Top 50. NARUTO is one of the most popular animated series in North America and is also distributed domestically by VIZ Media. The show is regularly ranked as the #1 program for boys aged 6-17 on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block of programming.

NarutoTM Rise of a Ninja © 2007 Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. Ubisoft and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the US and/or other countries. © 2002 MASASHI KISHIMOTO. This product is manufactured, distributed and sold under license from TV TOKYO CORPORATION & SHUEISHA INC. All Rights Reserved. Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, and the Xbox logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

For more information go to www.NARUTO.com.