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SEGA confirms Monkey Ball Deluxe

PS2 and Xbox finally get their monkey on.

SEGA of America has confirmed that it plans to release Super Monkey Ball Deluxe on the PS2 and Xbox in early 2005, after reports on this website and others "went bananas" over the details late last week.

As we told you at the time, the game will feature 300 stages - 114 from the original Super Monkey Ball, 140 from Super Monkey Ball 2, and 46 new additions - as well as more Story Mode stages, and all 12 party/mini games from both Cube titles.

There will also be a new Challenge Mode, in which the player tackles what sounds like all the stages as the difficulty setting quietly ramps up from Indiana Jones-level monkey-with-hat to Michael Crichton's Congo-level monkey-pluck-out-eye.

SEGA has also confirmed our report that the game will not retail at full whack; instead PS2 and Xbox owners will be expected to cough up just $29.95 in the US, which could pave the way for a £19.99 price point in Europe when the game arrives here in the first few months of 2005.

SEGA Europe was not available for comment at the time of publication (largely on account of the fact it's 7am at the moment and we'll be out of the house by the time they get into the office later).