Shanda to Acquire a Stake in Haofang SHANGHAI, China, July 29 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited (NASDAQ:SNDA), the largest operator of online games in China, announced today that it has signed an agreement to purchase for cash a minority stake in Shanghai Haofang Online Information Technology Co., Ltd., or Haofang, a privately-owned company that develops and operates the largest network PC game platform in China. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, Shanda will acquire a majority interest in Haofang in 2006 with a combination of cash and ordinary shares of Shanda. Haofang operates a network PC game platform, which, according to data provided by Haofang's management, had over 320,000 peak concurrent users and 200,000 average concurrent users in July 2004. Haofang's network game platform, which operates on over 200 servers located throughout China, allows users to easily find and connect with thousands of other players of the same PC game via the Internet. This is in contrast to the typical playing of PC games, which can only connect users in a local area network (LAN) environment, and allows only a limited number of players to play at one time. Haofang's platform is compatible with most of the popular multi-player network games in China. This platform is especially appealing to home users because it is otherwise rather inconvenient for them to find other gamers to play together at the same time. In addition to the network game platform, Haofang established and operates the first online-arena portal in China, http://www.cga.com.cn/ , which organizes large competition events among PC game users and provides news and information about various kinds of multi-player games and events. Currently, according to information provided by Haofang's management, this portal has over 30 million daily page views and is ranked by Alexa among the top 50 websites in China in terms of traffic. 'The strategic investment in Haofang helps us to add a third games segment to our current line of MMORPGs and casual games,' said Tianqiao Chen, CEO of Shanda, 'Through close cooperation, we can leverage our extensive nationwide distribution network and Haofang's network game platform to expand our user base and increase user loyalty by providing more game options. In addition, this investment further strengthens our strategy of penetrating the fast growing home-based game user market." About Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited is the largest operator of online games in China, offering a portfolio of games that users play over the Internet. Shanda's goal is to maintain and enhance its position in the online gaming industry in China and to become an influential digital entertainment company. For more information about Shanda, please visit http://www.snda.com/. For more information, please contact: Donglei Zhou, Director of Investor Relations, Shanda Interactive Entertainment Tel: +86-21-5050-4740 x8812 Email: Todd St.Onge, Brainerd Communicators, Inc. Tel: +1-212-986-6667 Email: DATASOURCE: Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited CONTACT: Donglei Zhou of Shanda, +86-21-5050-4740 x8812, or ; or Todd St.Onge of Brainerd Communicators, Inc., +1-212-986-6667, or , for Shanda Web Site: http://www.snda.com/

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