Jupiter Island, Fla., tops list for pricey property

It’s common knowledge that upscale burgs such as Palm Springs, Calif., have their fair share of wealthy residents and pricey property. Yet most of the communities on a new list of home prices ranked by ZIP code aren’t that famous — in fact, houses in Beverly Hills’ famous 90210 didn’t even make the Top 10.

The list of median home prices compiled by Forbes.com includes generally smaller towns, with limited zoning laws and fewer property sales.

Ranked first was Jupiter Island, Fla., where the median home price last year was $5.6 million, followed by Aspen, Colo., at $2.6 million. Sea Island, Ga., a 5-mile spit of sand where world leaders will gather next June for the 2004 Group of Eight Summit, had a median home price of $2.23 million. Rounding out the top five were Palm Beach, Fla., $2.2 million; and Centre Island, N.Y., $2.187 million.

Internet gaming

Companies compete for Japanese market

More than 100 games are available at a new Internet game portal in Japan as competition heats up to woo the growing Japanese broadband market.

BB Games has free playing time, news on online games, a directory of fan sites and a ranking of the latest offerings. The portal comes from Softbank Corp., which co-owns Yahoo’s Japanese subsidiary.

Masayoshi Son, Softbank Corp. chief executive officer, shows off CDs of online games during a news conference July 25.

Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp., which has sold 450,000 Xbox consoles in Japan, plans to add chat functions to its online gaming service in Japan. The attachment for its Xbox Live service will go on sale this year for $29.50.

Motley Fool

Name that company

I trace my roots back to the 1800s and a London seashell-importing firm. Today I’m the world’s No. 3 oil and gas company, based in the Netherlands. I have proved reserves of 10 billion barrels of oil and more than 50 trillion cubic feet of gas. Most of my crude oil is produced in Nigeria, Oman, the United Kingdom and the United States. I run more than 46,000 gas stations globally and have an interest in about 50 refineries worldwide. In 2002 I bought Pennzoil-Quaker State for $1.8 billion and agreed to build a $4.3 billion petrochemicals plant in southern China. Who am I?