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MEDIA ALERT: SEPTEMBER 18, 2000

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AIR PIRATES HAVE LANDED! CRIMSON SKIES SPOTTED ON STORE SHELVES

Microsoft today announced that Crimson Skies, a new action/adventure game for the PC, has started to appear on store shelves. There have been several reports of its availability at locations throughout the United States, and full domestic distribution is expected later this month. Crimson Skies combines the heart-pumping action of air combat with the swashbuckling feel of an Errol Flynn adventure movie.

In Crimson Skies players fly fast and low in a game reminiscent of a classic Hollywood tale, where dastardly enemies menace, evil plots abound, and a bevy of femme fatales awaits. As the handsome and daring air pirate Nathan Zachary, players take to skies filled with treacherous privateers, tricked-out fighter planes and giant aircraft-carrier zeppelins. Amid an ever-changing political landscape, Zachary and his notorious band of air pirates, the Fortune Hunters, have become the free agents in a fight for control of the skies.

The game transports players to an alternate-reality 1937. The United States has been struck by the crushing blows of the Great Depression, the Great War and Prohibition, resulting in mounting isolationism. The once-budding road and railway system has been destroyed, leaving the skies as the only means of transport and commerce. Militias in the North, South, East and West have formed rival independent nations in a fight for air supremacy. It is an era where swing may be king but pilots rule, a world where the guns are bigger, the planes faster and the adventures more daring -- the world of Crimson Skies.

For more information on the game, go to the official Crimson Skies Web site at:

http://www.microsoft.com/games/crimsonskies/

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