So why is it sega refuses to bring pso 2 stateside even for ps4

[Meta77]

Ignoring and pc elitism or play Japanese version elitism why is it sega refuses so hard to bring this game here. Do they hate America after psu? With a much larger ps4 instal base in NA america it baffles me why they refuse to even try. Reminds me of the days of how they f ed over their own consoles business. No logical business sense can be made to me and just wonder why. Would Sony if America need to step in?

[yoshiblue]

Semi relevant. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-J9dpG6-Pc)

[Sayara]

The problems of liscencing the anime crossovers, and the fact that their gatcha/AC spend->get scratch off thing isnt quite legal in some countries out of Japan.

Alot of the same reasons it didnt get brought over from PC/Vita over...

Still exist the same reason with ps4.

[Saffran]

The economics of the game, most probably. AC scratch would probably not do well enough outside of Asia to make the costs back.

[Magicks]

Didn't SEGA NA also get restructured? Maybe that's also a reason.

[Meta77]

But in the ps4s case would it not be as simple as listing ac in the playstation store. Like how every other game on their with microtransactions does?

[[Ayumi]]

But in the ps4s case would it not be as simple as listing ac in the playstation store. Like how every other game on their with microtransactions does?

It's not about being simple. They won't make as much outside Japan as they do inside Japan.

[kuromechan]

It's likely cause of the whole phenomenon called "localization"

[TheszNuts]

Because English voice actors are expensive.

[Meta77]

Sigh. well at least I still have my japanese psn account.

[Totori]

They never denied it if that helps, I guess?

[Sizustar]

Money, the cost to hire, maintain a US/EU server, along with the licensing fee(If they don't, then the AC scratch will be pretty empty, espcially the Voice ticket), along with localization.

[SlN]

Probs because dressing lolis up in skimpy outfits isn't as accepted in NA

[ShinMaruku]

Simplest is they can do it, but they don't want to pay for it. They are regoranizing everything and pso2 for the west is not a priority. Hell if their other things pan out pso2 will just be sauce.

[KLMS1]

ECONOMICS, SON

[jooozek]

ps4? i dont think that makes money

[Meta77]

Sadly soa thinks we want more sonic boom games. Money wasted on it could have went toward this

[landman]

When a crappy game like Sonic Boom sells as much as Valkyria Chronicles on Steam with a price tag ranging from 15 to 5€, then YES, people prefer Sonic games, is plain and infallible numbers.

They don't plan to release PSO2 for PS4 for the same reason they are not doing it for the announced PC version, because it costs money to maintain a F2P game, and it needs to get money back to survive.

[Utterly Vile]

If you have been playing on the vita version?. Then creating a Jp account on your PS3/PS4 shouldn't be any real issue. The transition should be no biggie at all.....Contemplation, or speculation over this is pointless.:-?

[[Ayumi]]

Because English voice actors are expensive.

They gave the actors from PSU more than $5 each?
Also don't see why they would need actors as they can keep the Japanese voices.


But with that being said, 90% of the game content would not exist due to them being collaborations and crap.

[Maenara]

Why is it that every bit of news regarding PSO2 results in people thinking 'Okay, now Sega HAS to bring it stateside!!!!'?

[[Ayumi]]

Why is it that every bit of news regarding PSO2 results in people thinking 'Okay, now Sega HAS to bring it stateside!!!!'?

You honestly should have known this is happening.

Can't remember like a year or however long ago when someone said
"Maybe when they bring it to PS3 or PS4 is when they might think of bringing it to the west?"

Or how about
"Maybe they're waiting until they upgrade the graphics because it's now really outdated."

This was a while back I've seen people say those things. Of course most replies were
"They won't put it on PS3/PS4" or something.
Seeing as PS4 is getting it AND the graphics upgrade, of course the talk will return from whence it came.

[Squal_FFVIII]

What I always find the most mind baffling is the fact that after almost 4 years people still want it to come to the US. LMAO.

Next year on April the game will be 4 years old guys....Holy shit. Do you REALLY wanna play a game thats 4 years behind?

I hate to say this but some people here are downright retarded.

[Maenara]

By this point, anyone who still wants to play the game but refuses to use the publicly available translation patch that has been proven by time to be harmless can now be considered elitist, in a sense. Suck it up, people. It isn't coming stateside, it never will, suck it up and decide whether you really want to play the game or not.

[Hysteria1987]

I'm sure I read somewhere that some of the higher-ups think it's too 'Japanese' to succeed outside of Japan. I suppose it did turn into something pretty niche.

I'm sure any hypothetical local version could be released without the licenced content though, and not suffer for it.

[lostinseganet]

Cultrure issues. They would be called racist and sexist pigs. Also they are scared or western hackers. PSO from dreamcast had some painful times for sega due to hackers

[[Ayumi]]

What I always find the most mind baffling is the fact that after almost 4 years people still want it to come to the US. LMAO.

Next year on April the game will be 4 years old guys....Holy shit. Do you REALLY wanna play a game thats 4 years behind?

I hate to say this but some people here are downright retarded.

I remember when PSU was like 5 months then it got worse and worse and was then like 10 or 11 months behind. People were getting annoyed and was wonderng when the western servers would catch up with it.
Then wondering when the GC would come and found out it never was going to.

I don't see how you hated that, but want that same thing to happen again.


By this point, anyone who still wants to play the game but refuses to use the publicly available translation patch that has been proven by time to be harmless can now be considered elitist, in a sense. Suck it up, people. It isn't coming stateside, it never will, suck it up and decide whether you really want to play the game or not.

By this point I think some of them want to whine just to whine. I like how people like to say we are xenophobic, yet it seems like some of those that say that are the same ones that go "I can't play a game that's not 100% in English".


I'm sure I read somewhere that some of the higher-ups think it's too 'Japanese' to succeed outside of Japan. I suppose it did turn into something pretty niche.

I'm sure any hypothetical local version could be released without the licenced content though, and not suffer for it.

The reason why PSU PC died was because of that though. Many couldn't stand it and jumped ship do the JPN servers or just stopped playing completely.
Those that didn't go to the Japanese servers went to the 360. And even then, the 360 only didn't die because Japanese players were on it as well.

So no... it would not survive long.
And it would be even worse as it's not that it would be just a delay, a lot of content will be missing. A lot.



Cultrure issues. They would be called racist and sexist pigs. Also they are scared or western hackers. PSO from dreamcast had some painful times for sega due to hackers

I can see Anita and her owner saying some thing about the Luna Prophecy. PSP2i stayed in Japan so they don't know much about it. If PSO2 came, just think of the crap for just that one specific piece.
I already sometimes annoyed how there's certain clothes I want I wont' get, but I try to get a certain set up to work.
America though, a lot of people will be "Triggered" by how "why am I looking like a whore, but the man looks just fine?!"
Big news for Sega and Sega will have to probably just shut the servers down as they won't add more work to the game outside Japan for the same pay they was already getting from the West... OR maybe less as some of those same people might play and then just leave the game and cause trouble.

[Totori]

By this point, anyone who still wants to play the game but refuses to use the publicly available translation patch that has been proven by time to be harmless can now be considered elitist, in a sense. Suck it up, people. It isn't coming stateside, it never will, suck it up and decide whether you really want to play the game or not.

But if it does come over, think of the surprise! No reason for people not to have hope if they want to, SEGA never canceled it, so if peeps wanna believe it's still coming out, why not?

There are a few issues people want to play it, without the translation patches, they want to be able to give SEGA money, sure there are ways about this... but it's kinda annoying everytime.

[gamesbloke]

I think people would bemoan this but why can't Sega do one of two things:
1. Make PSO2 as accessible as possible to westerners with official English guides and support etc.
2. Put a super basic translation out there using English overlays or similar. Might look crude but easy way to ensure western fans get a good taste of the experience. Cost would be minimal in business terms. Yeah sure folks would moan it's not done brilliantly but if it gets PSO2 in the west then all the better.

I have been surrounded by the VG industry for over 20 years and I have seen many companies put out shoddy crap and made a total killing. All the talk about payment systems and legality make total sense but then why not put disclaimers explaining this to the folks wanting the AC etc...?

We all have our views on NIS America and so forth but why can't collaboration be an option?

Japan is a big market sure but some besuited person at Sega must be like "Why are we not doing this?"

Obv. theres a lot of variables to consider but those costs would never outweigh the pay model created within the framework of PSO2.

[Selphea]

Part of it IMO is that Japanese companies tend to look inwards at Japan first rather than outwards at the world.

But the second thing is that they're very institutionalized, otherwise they could just do a quick hack like make an International Ship hosted in Japan, in Japanese by default, but work with and pay AIDA, make an English landing page and an English launcher that integrates with the EN patch.

[landman]

1. Make PSO2 as accessible as possible to westerners with official English guides and support etc.
So if it is crap but official it's ok, but if it is nice but fanmade it's not ok?

[[Ayumi]]

So if it is crap but official it's ok, but if it is nice but fanmade it's not ok?

Makes me wonder why not so many of these players are not on the Engrish SEA server then.
Just VPN.

[landman]

Free VPN are crap, that's why, provably.

[Hysteria1987]

;3292492']The reason why PSU PC died was because of that though. Many couldn't stand it and jumped ship do the JPN servers or just stopped playing completely.
Those that didn't go to the Japanese servers went to the 360. And even then, the 360 only didn't die because Japanese players were on it as well.

So no... it would not survive long.
And it would be even worse as it's not that it would be just a delay, a lot of content will be missing. A lot.
To clarify, I don't mean content as in quests to play, balance patches, etc... What I meant there was specifically the things Sega needs licences from other IPs to use. I meant to say I can certainly go without dressing up as an anime character I've not heard of before, for instance- if the game needs these things to stand up, it's not really it's own game, if you know what I mean. You're definitely right about the other content, though- if they were to announce a western server today, there's no way I'd jump ship.

[gamesbloke]

Official means more to the masses. At the end of the day it's all about the margins and profits. Me personally I am more than happy with the current situation. The fan made tag does not affect my decisions on gaming. Been enjoying fan made trans from Ys IV on PCE-CD to Policenauts PSX for many years. But Sega is a company with a mixed rep and I am conscious of when the fun train comes to a close. More money means more PSO2. Larger user base means potentially more fun. Seems silly to not exploit it, even if on a basic level.

I love that PSO2 is niche in the west. I like niche things. But some of my favourite things have been stopped by lack of money so I wonder what the real reasons are behind Sega's decision making.

My stance is simple: Spend any money set aside on a western release on Ep IV or something cool for the fans etc....

[KLMS1]

;3292492']America though, a lot of people will be "Triggered" by how "why am I looking like a whore, but the man looks just fine?!"

Those people are constitutionally incapable of going near the vast majority of gaemz without experiencing paroxysms of rage to rival Cu Chulainn's "warp-spasms" anyway for obvious reasons, though. Pretty sure they're not exactly counted as "target audience".

[Selphea]

;3292492'America though, a lot of people will be "Triggered" by how "why am I looking like a whore, but the man looks just fine?!"

[spoiler-box]http://i.imgur.com/mXHpJus.jpg[/spoiler-box]

[[Ayumi]]

To clarify, I don't mean content as in quests to play, balance patches, etc... What I meant there was specifically the things Sega needs licences from other IPs to use. I meant to say I can certainly go without dressing up as an anime character I've not heard of before, for instance- if the game needs these things to stand up, it's not really it's own game, if you know what I mean. You're definitely right about the other content, though- if they were to announce a western server today, there's no way I'd jump ship.

Actually I meant the quests and such. It wasn't until the last 2 sentences I meant the licensed stuff. As a lot of it is content in the game due to a lot of collaboration. PSU died because of the actual Sega content never came or was delayed so badly that people jump to the Japanese server to get it.
Ask any Japanese player, forget Western for now, about the "Supplemental Update" on the 360 that was meant to come with the same content as PSU in Japan. Where all the cool things were reskinned from 9*s and such.
You would hear a lot of annoyance and anger from them.
A lot of Japanese players that was on the 360 didn't like how they were treated just because they had to share with the Western crowd.




Also I want to state why I think I got the perfect idea as to why Sega won't even think about it though.
It's all down to money.

Don't forget that yeah they want to make their fans happy and such, but they are still a business in making money. Maybe not the creators, but the people who are in control of the creators are there for just the money.

Now with that in mind, let's say from the 100% of the PS fans... that maybe 75% of them are already playing.

Whether it's SEA or JPN, they're playing already. So there, they're already got majority of the fanbase.

After that, you got that most of those 75% are paying the AC.. whether from
Webmoney or PSO2es or Aida or whichever. So right there they're getting paid from those fans.

Next is translation costs money... they got the fans making the translations and patches and they knew since the 1st few months as Sakai himself said he was impressed by their swiftness in doing such a task. No money to translate meaning more money still in Sega's pocket.

Next is they don't have to pay to transfer any of these licensings as once again majority of the fans are already playing and they will either get those items to use OR get those items to sell in shops to people who want it. Either way, it's a win/win on Sega's part there.

Finally, the money continue to come in because when Japan is sleeping, the others outside Japan are still buying AC and playing the game so it's almost an all day profit for them.

No need to advertise, translate, transfer, port, make new servers, blah blah blah blah blah. When you have like I said (just estimating) around mabee 75% of the fans playing, why as a business would you bloody make the game for the Western world for the other 25%? That's idiotic in a business sense.

There's a reason why once again PSU died on the PC outside Japan. They weren't making money. IF they were, it would not have died years before JPN or 360.

[[Ayumi]]

[spoiler-box]http://i.imgur.com/mXHpJus.jpg[/spoiler-box]

They would not get mad at that. The girl version would have cleavage.

[Selphea]

It actually doesn't, surprisingly enough http://www.bumped.org/psublog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Suspenders-Suit-F-508x286.jpg. PSO2 is quite equal opportunity about objectification.

[KLMS1]

That isn't strictly speaking a PSO2 costume design though, is it?

[Selphea]

There's Orakio Jacket, Wild Ogre and the swimsuits too

[TaigaUC]

"Elitism" is one of those words that has lost its meaning because people throw it around so much.
It currently seems to mean "stating a fact that people don't want to accept".

I'm sure there are a ton of reasons why SEGA can't be bothered porting PSO2 to the West.
And there's no point in us speculating. It could be anything. Fact is they don't want to, and that's that.

[Alisha]

because fans would never accept the gulf in content when they could continue playing the jp version.

[FacelessRed]

Didn't SEGA NA also get restructured? Maybe that's also a reason.

"SEGA NA"
---
Not just NA... trust me on that one.

[KLMS1]

And there's no point in us speculating. It could be anything.
Seeing as how the subject is a for-profit business entity it ought to be a fairly safe bet to assume the reasons have an awful lot to do with projected profit margins, though.

[r00tabaga]

There are so many NA/EU game developers out there. How hard would it be to do a kickstarter for a Phantasy Star "clone"? Xbox, PC, PS4, WiiU I don't care. Without breaking copyright infringements, I'd love to see a company do a game similar to PSO, PSU, PSPo2 or PSO2. Would likely make a lot of money. Wish I knew programmers.
I'm sick of waiting for western release. Fuch Sega.

[blace]

because fans would never accept the gulf in content when they could continue playing the jp version.

Huge gaps in content has never turned really turned away the fanbase, it's the oversaturation of crossovers that seems to hurt the game in the gameplay department than catering to their fans.

SEGA went through a recent restructuring with some of their offices, and laying off employees due to it. If anything, at this point in time it would require a vast amount of resources to bring the game outside of Japan and finding server hosts, actors to do the voices, licensing fees for crossover content, dedicated teams to monitor the game, translation teams, and come up with promotional content to ensure that fans would play the game. If the NA branch having to move to a smaller office means anything, they're lacking the funds needed to properly do so. Taking it back further, some of their recent games have been pretty lackluster.

As it is now, SEGA is focusing mostly on the gacha portion of the game as well as its pachinko business in Japan. Making profit is their priority even when their CEO claims that they're trying to make it up for fans outside of Japan.

I was hoping for changes in how they did their business when the CEO made that statement, but seeing how they're limiting PSO2 on PS4 to Japanese only foresaw the outcome. Nothing has changed, they're showcasing games as per usual, and even then, it isn't unexpected.

[Meta77]

By this point, anyone who still wants to play the game but refuses to use the publicly available translation patch that has been proven by time to be harmless can now be considered elitist, in a sense. Suck it up, people. It isn't coming stateside, it never will, suck it up and decide whether you really want to play the game or not.

Because I have been playing ps games since I was little. And again thats the elistism attitude I grow sick of in the pso community. I have 3 characters and have been on the game since the start but at the same time I would like it to come stateside and so would many other fans. Not everyone is some tos breaking pc gamer that enjoys acting as if the game is the greatest to blow rainbows out of its rear with so many mmos on the market today espically with black sands looking pretty neat. I just think the prospect of playing on ps4 would be fun and saying f2p do not do well is silly. Guild wars did pretty good last I checked.

[SilverFoxR]

Seriously, though... with this new CEO looking to "regain the trust of it's fanbase" and get the old Sega fans back on board, you'd think that making the western version of PS02 would be a no-brainer... considering how they originally were doing it, then just pulled a Half-Life 3 or Duke Nukem Forever and said "it'll be done when it's done". I mean, sure, it'd take a little bit of time to localize things, but it's not like they wouldn't profit off it.

And if you think that a F2P MMORPG wouldn't profit in the west, then you underestimate the power of self-entitled kiddies taking mommy and daddy's credit card (assuming they aren't being given a debit/credit card by age 10 along with the newest iPhone)... F2P MMOs do quite well in North America as well... terrible example, but look at Maple Story... the NA version is over 10 years old now and still making substantial profits across the board.

[landman]

Seriously, though... with this new CEO looking to "regain the trust of it's fanbase" and get the old Sega fans back on board

Satomi (Jr) said: "If we can make a title with proper quality, I believe there’s a good chance for it to do well even in the West for players that like to play Japanese games"

So, what makes you think he was talking about PSO2 in this sentence? Key word "quality" LOL

[Chaosprime]

Additionally the last 2-3 console games to come out in EU and NA simply did very badly. There was not enough sales or support for it. The market is niche and the uprunning of servers and such in reality would not be covered at least that is their worry. This is not the same in the east. I mean lets face it, how many people will buy from the AC shop? In general from the player base going from a game i use to work on for a chinese company, their buy rate for items which was actually essential t progress as well was at 3%. I hear from PSO2 its all cosmetic, so the buy rate would likely be even lower than that sparking a non brainer as to why its not being released state side or EU. As for the SEA version, they are covering all the cost and paying SEGA royalties/licensing fees. Thats how they managed it. Because of this they have a smaller supply of servers and dont want outside nations playing hence the banhammer :/

[ArcaneTechs]

Long as theres hope these lazy people will cling to it, hell, Sega of America could be shutting down tomorrow and they would petition this game to be released to make all this money back so they don't have to close down.

Every E3, Every PAX, Every TGS, they keep praying to Mirei Mikuna so that they are answered for a release date only to have Dudu smack away their prayers and laugh menacingly with his hand out waiting for their precious money to be put there

[Meta77]

If noting else I feel sega at least owes the American fan base a definite no instead of no plans atm bullshit they pull every time someone ask. So they can go focus on sonic boom and their crazed mobile games. Eventually i see them going the way of konami.

[blace]

If noting else I feel sega at least owes the American fan base a definite no instead of no plans atm bullshit they pull every time someone ask. So they can go focus on sonic boom and their crazed mobile games. Eventually i see them going the way of konami.

They've already took that path when they started to heavily pile in the gacha prizes with crossover promotions shortly after merging with Sammy and pushing out pachinko machines. This was before Konami changed as well.

[Chaosprime]

maybe so, but PSO in the west doesnt sell. Sonic and mobile games do sell. Its all about money, they are a business in the end. As for their stance on "no plans atm", that is accurate. Its not like they dont want to release it globally, but right now the demand is not there as such its not feasable to release it to the western market. However when the demansd is there, rest assured it will arrive. Im actually curious if they started a kickstarter like Shenmue3 did, how much and how fast would it raise money... Interesting thought.

[ArcaneTechs]

If noting else I feel sega at least owes the American fan base a definite no instead of no plans atm bullshit they pull every time someone ask.
They owe nobody anything, this entitlement ppl like to throw up needs to stop "Sega owes me an answer for all the Sega brand games and hardware I bought 20-30yrs ago!!1!1!!11"

Eventually i see them going the way of konami.
Konami's a mess, might as well Phil Fish

[blace]

They owe nobody anything, this entitlement ppl like to throw up needs to stop "Sega owes me an answer for all the Sega brand games and hardware I bought 20-30yrs ago!!1!1!!11"

They do owe an answer in that they've said earlier this year that it was being worked on through Twitter when someone asked about it. They're instilling false information if the project was cancelled entirely. Let's also touch on their response on whether or not the PS4 version will be released outside of Japan, they made the remark that it's not happening at this time instead of a definitive 'no'.

Whether or not you agree with the sentiment an answer that isn't avoiding the question should be given.

[ArcaneTechs]

They do owe an answer in that they've said earlier this year that it was being worked on through Twitter when someone asked about it. They're instilling false information if the project was cancelled entirely. Let's also touch on their response on whether or not the PS4 version will be released outside of Japan, they made the remark that it's not happening at this time instead of a definitive 'no'.

Whether or not you agree with the sentiment an answer that isn't avoiding the question should be given.
Post the Twitter reply, never heard of that until now and that PS4 question was asked toward Sega of Japan which they said the usual of having no plans to release outside of Japan. They give these run around answers all the time, at this point it doesnt need to be definitive with so much time that has passed

[Totori]

But really it's gonna burn them more if they cancelled it, and haven't just said anything. Rather than just tell no. It's not regaining trust in their name.

If anything it'll do nothing more than adding salt onto the already open wound.

[ArcaneTechs]

But really it's gonna burn them more if they cancelled it, and haven't just said anything. Rather than just tell no. It's not regaining trust in their name.

If anything it'll do nothing more than adding salt onto the already open wound.
because the fans havent already been burned? because once it hits spring again, another year gone by with fans even more mad or flat out dont care and gone? i mean what more harm can it do than that, people are already mad, cant get anymore madder than this. CEO wants to build trust yet months go by still and i still have yet to see any effort from them or SoA to make this happen.

[blace]

Post the Twitter reply, never heard of that until now and that PS4 question was asked toward Sega of Japan which they said the usual of having no plans to release outside of Japan. They give these run around answers all the time, at this point it doesnt need to be definitive with so much time that has passed
It seems I was mistaken, it was around this time last year being the latest reply: https://twitter.com/SEGA/status/507206954800803840

Still, they left at that and this is just one of the many replies regarding PSO2 during that time frame.


But really it's gonna burn them more if they cancelled it, and haven't just said anything. Rather than just tell no. It's not regaining trust in their name.

If anything it'll do nothing more than adding salt onto the already open wound.

Kril already answered how I would have given it.

If the past couple of years here haven't been any indicator, it's that the fanbase is impatient with Sega's failings. Not just with the community for PSO, but all around when they started putting out games with questionable quality and lack of testing to ensure it was up to current standards.

Edit: While searching around Twitter for a more recent tweet by them, it turns out there's quite a bit of backlash from fans that wanted the game when it was announced that PSO2 on PS4 was Japan only. Take what you will from it, it's undeniable that fans are already burned out by Sega for their silence.

[ArcaneTechs]

Twitter post is pretty much the same as all the copy/paste answer they give to everyone, i pretty much disregard it at this point because its literally the same thing people always point out as recent info or something and think it holds up as hope. They should just flat out tell everyone yes or no, done deal, move on to greener pastures or yes its coming we're having difficulties trying to make this happen. Really not hard to help ease peoples minds on this after all this time

[Maenara]

Guys, guys, guys. They just showed off japanese game updates to japanese people! Now Sega HAS to bring the game stateside!!!

[blace]

Guys, guys, guys. They just showed off japanese game updates to japanese people! Now Sega HAS to bring the game stateside!!!

I refer you to this amongst one of the many outlets regarding why Sega's CEO is mentioned: http://segabits.com/blog/2015/07/07/sega-japan-ceo-talks-about-earning-gamers-trust-learning-from-atlus-and-focusing-on-quality-titles/

[ArcaneTechs]

Guys, guys, guys. They just showed off japanese game updates to japanese people! Now Sega HAS to bring the game stateside!!!
Literally every stream, it hurts sometimes

[TaigaUC]

At least we can play the JP version.
I'm used to playing JP versions, so I don't care.

Localization always ends up messing with something, so I just avoid it entirely.
If PSO2 goes to the West maybe it'll get renamed to "Space Infection Wars" and Photon will be renamed to "The Force".
The classes will get renamed to Barbarian, Sniper, Caster, Gladiator, Equilibrium, Cleric, Samurai and Ninja.
90% of the female outfits will get deleted, for sake of equality. Minimum height will be increased to 160cm so as to not endanger children.
All visible female skin will be painted plain flat solid black, so as to not offend anyone.
Small boobs will be removed for fear of violating Australian law.
Etc, etc. No thanks.

[landman]

At least we can play the JP version.
I'm used to playing JP versions, so I don't care.

Localization always ends up messing with something, so I just avoid it entirely.
If PSO2 goes to the West maybe it'll get renamed to "Space Infection Wars" and Photon will be renamed to "The Force".
The classes will get renamed to Barbarian, Sniper, Caster, Gladiator, Equilibrium, Cleric, Samurai and Ninja.
90% of the female outfits will get deleted, for sake of equality. Minimum height will be increased to 160cm so as to not endanger children.
All visible female skin will be painted plain flat solid black, so as to not offend anyone.
Small boobs will be removed for fear of violating Australian law.
Etc, etc. No thanks.

Yep, because all previous Phantasy Star games did that.

[akitalevia]

Yep, because all previous Phantasy Star games did that.
The extreme activists weren't that active before compared to today. Especially since how fast and easy it is to spread their ugly propaganda since most people have some kind of access to the internet.

[TaigaUC]

Not so much previous Phantasy Star games, but other online games have had stupid changes akin to those.
PSO2 SEA has stupid name changes, too.
If they felt that those were necessary for SEA, imagine what they feel is necessary for the West.

And I dunno if there's more incentive to censor MMOs because they're online and free for anyone to download, whereas other games usually have some kind of ratings system applied.
I tend to ignore ratings systems entirely.

[landman]

Asiasoft made the decision to change the names to casualize a mostly unknown franchise to their public, but in the western market the series already has a trajectory and a localized lore, of course every localization is different, PSO maintained Rika Claw but PSU corrected it back to Fal Claw, and PSO also switched back to Falz instead of Force, but also because the Japanese romanizations changed Phallus to Falz.

B&S is coming west uncensored, and the only censoring the Phantasy Star franchise has ever had was in PSP2, they removed room wall posters with rl 13yo girls in a bikini.

[TaigaUC]

I thought I saw people saying Phantasy Star is a known franchise in Asia.

I'm surprised B&S isn't getting censored. TERA got censored. I could swear there was something else, but I seem to have forgotten what.

[Zanverse]

SEGA JP seems to be doing fine without a PSO2 West release. It's you guys that have your panties in a knot because they won't release it. I could've sworn I posted the reason for them not releasing it too... I mean, if I heard it straight from a SEGA Marketer, I have no other choice but to believe him. No Anerican company wants to take in PSO2 because no one wants to pay the millions(?) of dollars to keep all the collab items and pay for translation and pay for voice acting and pay for new servers. I'm not complaining, because I have a near-perfectly translated game, thanks to the Translation Team. And quite frankly, there's so many of us on the JP servers to even notice that we're playing a JP game.

[landman]

I wouldn't have complaints if I could actually play story mode and understand it... it's so cool a lot of players can read japanese but very few help arks layer in the story translation. At least I had a FULL experience regarding story content in PSU360 server, we got not only all story chapters but also sub plots linking to portable games.

[[Ayumi]]

Long as theres hope these lazy people will cling to it, hell, Sega of America could be shutting down tomorrow and they would petition this game to be released to make all this money back so they don't have to close down.

Every E3, Every PAX, Every TGS, they keep praying to Mirei Mikuna so that they are answered for a release date only to have Dudu smack away their prayers and laugh menacingly with his hand out waiting for their precious money to be put there
Praying to Mirei and not to Rico. There's why the prayers are never answered.




At least we can play the JP version.
I'm used to playing JP versions, so I don't care.

Localization always ends up messing with something, so I just avoid it entirely.
If PSO2 goes to the West maybe it'll get renamed to "Space Infection Wars" and Photon will be renamed to "The Force".
The classes will get renamed to Barbarian, Sniper, Caster, Gladiator, Equilibrium, Cleric, Samurai and Ninja.
90% of the female outfits will get deleted, for sake of equality. Minimum height will be increased to 160cm so as to not endanger children.
All visible female skin will be painted plain flat solid black, so as to not offend anyone.
Small boobs will be removed for fear of violating Australian law.
Etc, etc. No thanks.

Yep, because all previous Phantasy Star games did that.

I agree the names and such will not be changed one bit, but the 90% of female outfits would be removed for sure.


SEGA JP seems to be doing fine without a PSO2 West release. It's you guys that have your panties in a knot because they won't release it. I could've sworn I posted the reason for them not releasing it too... I mean, if I heard it straight from a SEGA Marketer, I have no other choice but to believe him. No Anerican company wants to take in PSO2 because no one wants to pay the millions(?) of dollars to keep all the collab items and pay for translation and pay for voice acting and pay for new servers. I'm not complaining, because I have a near-perfectly translated game, thanks to the Translation Team. And quite frankly, there's so many of us on the JP servers to even notice that we're playing a JP game.

Not only there's many English players, but how many of those are willing to move from the JP server to the English one? That's the thing you need to wonder.


I wouldn't have complaints if I could actually play story mode and understand it... it's so cool a lot of players can read japanese but very few help arks layer in the story translation. At least I had a FULL experience regarding story content in PSU360 server, we got not only all story chapters but also sub plots linking to portable games.

I thought the translation team was translating the story mode for those that don't know Japanese. I mean there's a patch that's called Story Mode Patch.

Also you didn't get the full experience if you're considering the portable games because you never played Infinity I would bet.

[landman]

;3292968']I agree the names and such will not be changed one bit, but the 90% of female outfits would be removed for sure.

Why would they? they never did in PSU or PSP2, including any kind of swimwear and bath towel, and the game even let you go with underwear from the start, when Sega noticed people were glitching the game to combine the swimsuits and bikinis with other clothes they first patched it and then released separated items to make the same combinations.




;3292968']I thought the translation team was translating the story mode for those that don't know Japanese. I mean there's a patch that's called Story Mode Patch.

Also you didn't get the full experience if you're considering the portable games because you never played Infinity I would bet.
If you had the story patch installed you would see how scarce its updates have become... for months.

And I got a full PSU experience (with Episode 3 4 endings), + PSP subplot (and PSU prequel quest), +PSP2 Episode 1 (with its own conclusive ending), but true, they did not bring infinity, but luckily for me and the ones that don't know japanese like myself devifox saved the day with his translation.

[TaigaUC]

Well, like I said, free online games are more accessible than rated games you gotta pay for.
I don't really know, though. That's just the impression I get.

Anyway, IMHO the story isn't great. Doesn't seem like JP people think much of it either.
You could probably use your imagination and it'd be just as good or better.
I used to do that for Hong Kong comics that I couldn't understand. They seemed so random anyway.
There was this Street Fighter one where Guile had a packet of cigarettes strapped to his head all the time.

[landman]

I stopped playing PSU regularly the moment I finished all its story, and if PSO2 didn't have a story I wouldn't be playing it either. That's what happens when you are a fan of a franchise for 2+ decades.

[Squal_FFVIII]

Lol, you're playing pso2 just for story mode?

Here's a tip. Ever since PSO came out (since the dreamcast era) story hasn't been an important area in these games. You're playing pso for the wrong reasons if story is what you care about.

[[Ayumi]]

Why would they? they never did in PSU or PSP2, including any kind of swimwear and bath towel, and the game even let you go with underwear from the start, when Sega noticed people were glitching the game to combine the swimsuits and bikinis with other clothes they first patched it and then released separated items to make the same combinations.




If you had the story patch installed you would see how scarce its updates have become... for months.

And I got a full PSU experience (with Episode 3 4 endings), + PSP subplot (and PSU prequel quest), +PSP2 Episode 1 (with its own conclusive ending), but true, they did not bring infinity, but luckily for me and the ones that don't know japanese like myself devifox saved the day with his translation.

PSU did not have bad outfits. Neither did PSP2. When I mean bad, I mean very very showy. PSP2i did and I know PSO2 do as well of course.
Unless you mean PSUJP. PSUJP had a lot of revealing outfits and none of them ever came out on the English servers. I'm pretty sure the same thing would happen on PSO2.

Also I can't say much on the story patch other than I heard a lot of it was patched. I'm still on the final chapter of Episode 1 and about to start Episode 2 when I get around to finishing the last matterboard of EP1.
I guess if you constantly playing the story you will have to wait a while for the translators to do something about it.

Also I thought the translation patch for PSP2i was scrapped.


Well, like I said, free online games are more accessible than rated games you gotta pay for.
I don't really know, though. That's just the impression I get.

Anyway, IMHO the story isn't great. Doesn't seem like JP people think much of it either.
You could probably use your imagination and it'd be just as good or better.
I used to do that for Hong Kong comics that I couldn't understand. They seemed so random anyway.
There was this Street Fighter one where Guile had a packet of cigarettes strapped to his head all the time.

PSO2's story is a billion times better than PSU's though. Way better.


I stopped playing PSU regularly the moment I finished all its story, and if PSO2 didn't have a story I wouldn't be playing it either. That's what happens when you are a fan of a franchise for 2+ decades.

I don't know. I kind of made my own story for PSO2. Like it's a continuation of PSO and PSU. That's just me though.

[Punisher106]

PSU had the worst story out of them all, IMO. It was just about Ethan, not hte player Character.

Also, the Story Patch has been stagnant for MONTHS. It's the next Valve.

[Shadowth117]

PSU had the worst story out of them all, IMO. It was just about Ethan, not hte player Character.


What, you didn't like being promoted to some commander status and then left to do literally nothing with it?

But yeah, at least in PSO2 they actually make your character pretty important in the story even if they don't give you too much choice in what all happens.

[Maninbluejumpsuit]

I thought I saw people saying Phantasy Star is a known franchise in Asia.

I'm surprised B&S isn't getting censored. TERA got censored. I could swear there was something else, but I seem to have forgotten what.

Only thing TERA had censored was actual nip-slips on some castanic plate metal bikinis, and Elin outfits (characters that look that young showing navel, and wearing v-shaped undergarments in place of pants for their caster gear is an obviously touchy topic (http://www.gameplorer.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tera-elin-vorher-nachher.jpg)).

By our standards, uncensored B&S is quite tame. China is just afraid of skin (http://i.ytimg.com/vi/R6XQ3wKVCI0/maxresdefault.jpg). Sometimes (http://images.mmosite.com/my/upload/02/3c/f918dee4d12253266ef4dce0ff458a37/theme/e0781bf6af87bbb3edb4941eab2ae26e87.jpg), annoyingly so (http://images.mmosite.com/my/upload/02/3c/f918dee4d12253266ef4dce0ff458a37/theme/1fe979e7110ffec45c1dff22397a308f435.jpg). ('original' is the unpatched chinese version)

[Punisher106]

What, you didn't like being promoted to some commander status and then left to do literally nothing with it?


Nope. Also, the fact that Vivienne was the only NPC that actually gave a shit about your character, only to be killed off for the sake of PSP1 was a dick move, even if she came back one last time in the end.

On top of that, in PSP2, the PSU Player Character isn't even acknowledged for killing Dark Falz. It's made where Ethan did all the work.

[yoshiblue]

The good ending to PSP1 had you two become rouges living under Tyler. Seems a CAST/Copy CAST can gain a heart too, which apparently allows for photon usage. Not sure what happens to the player in PSP2/PSP2i though.

[GHNeko]

Guys, guys, guys. They just showed off japanese game updates to japanese people! Now Sega HAS to bring the game stateside!!!

I love this post. So much.

[landman]

Lol, you're playing pso2 just for story mode?

Here's a tip. Ever since PSO came out (since the dreamcast era) story hasn't been an important area in these games. You're playing pso for the wrong reasons if story is what you care about.
Ok :wacko:

[Shadowth117]

The good ending to PSP1 had you two become rouges living under Tyler. Seems a CAST/Copy CAST can gain a heart too, which apparently allows for photon usage. Not sure what happens to the player in PSP2/PSP2i though.

Seems like a much nicer ending from what happened canonically. As far as portable 2 goes, I guess you could technically say the games are connected since you can import your character from the first game and all, but you literally don't get any sort of story connection as far as I remember.

The endings of portable 2 and infinity just have you be-bopping around with Little Wing still after doing your world saving as far as I remember. You do get props for those endings at least since your character actually has more of a lead role, but still not to the degree of PSO2.

[Punisher106]

The good ending to PSP1 had you two become rouges living under Tyler. Seems a CAST/Copy CAST can gain a heart too, which apparently allows for photon usage. Not sure what happens to the player in PSP2/PSP2i though.

You meet Ethan in a side story, and they're like "OMG ETHAN HE SAVED THE GURHAL SYSTEM ALFGHASDJKLHFGJKLHJKLDFSGHDFSJKLGHDFKGH" with no mention of your character. There IS another side story where you run into Vivienne, and she seems to be searching for somebody. I did some research, and it turns out to be the PSU player character she's looking for, so...

[Calsetes]

;3292478']You honestly should have known this is happening.

Can't remember like a year or however long ago when someone said
"Maybe when they bring it to PS3 or PS4 is when they might think of bringing it to the west?"

Or how about
"Maybe they're waiting until they upgrade the graphics because it's now really outdated."

This was a while back I've seen people say those things. Of course most replies were
"They won't put it on PS3/PS4" or something.
Seeing as PS4 is getting it AND the graphics upgrade, of course the talk will return from whence it came.

The sad thing is when you remember this:

http://www.pso2.com/us/

And you realize that the last time it was touched was 2012 to post a news article about Sega at PAX for that year. That's probably why people keep asking Sega what's going on with it, since they didn't say it was cancelled, but instead keep beating around the bush (and the bush is more like a single small tumbleweed in a barren desert-like wasteland with nothing around for miles.)

They should either come out and say it's not happening (which is likely what it is) or actually acknowledge the huge lack of communication, or even both.

Them randomly banning accounts when I make them, despite me not spamming or causing issues, is why I've given up trying to play this and why I never (thankfully) spent any money on this thing.

I'm a huge Phantasy Star fan, but seriously - if Sonic Team has this attitude towards non-Japanese fans, then I guess I'm done being a fan of it.

[Meta77]

The sad thing is when you remember this:

http://www.pso2.com/us/

And you realize that the last time it was touched was 2012 to post a news article about Sega at PAX for that year. That's probably why people keep asking Sega what's going on with it, since they didn't say it was cancelled, but instead keep beating around the bush (and the bush is more like a single small tumbleweed in a barren desert-like wasteland with nothing around for miles.)

They should either come out and say it's not happening (which is likely what it is) or actually acknowledge the huge lack of communication, or even both.

Them randomly banning accounts when I make them, despite me not spamming or causing issues, is why I've given up trying to play this and why I never (thankfully) spent any money on this thing.

I'm a huge Phantasy Star fan, but seriously - if Sonic Team has this attitude towards non-Japanese fans, then I guess I'm done being a fan of it.
Damn looking at that site makes me sad inside.

[[Ayumi]]

The sad thing is when you remember this:

http://www.pso2.com/us/

And you realize that the last time it was touched was 2012 to post a news article about Sega at PAX for that year. That's probably why people keep asking Sega what's going on with it, since they didn't say it was cancelled, but instead keep beating around the bush (and the bush is more like a single small tumbleweed in a barren desert-like wasteland with nothing around for miles.)

They should either come out and say it's not happening (which is likely what it is) or actually acknowledge the huge lack of communication, or even both.

Them randomly banning accounts when I make them, despite me not spamming or causing issues, is why I've given up trying to play this and why I never (thankfully) spent any money on this thing.

I'm a huge Phantasy Star fan, but seriously - if Sonic Team has this attitude towards non-Japanese fans, then I guess I'm done being a fan of it.

I remember being thrilled hearing about it coming, then remembering the content problem in the past games and ran to the Japanese server without a 2nd thought.
Partially for the alpha and beta, but then of course stayed knowing there would be 0 delay in content.

Not knowing the "Delay" is forever it seems.

[Gama]

I'm kinda tired of seeing the same topic over and over.

they will not, make a NA version, period.

the amount of changes to the game and personnel and resources.

there is no money to be made with it.

sega learned with psu, they do not plan to fuck up again. (to fuck even more that is)

[landman]

The worst thing about this... it means the franchise is 100% dead in the west, the same as Shining Force or Puyo Puyo, and that includes any other single player story based game they release in the future (like Nova).

[Shady3011]

So no more Sonic? :wacko:

[r00tabaga]

When is the earliest a private server can run this game? I'm wondering if the official servers have to be shut down first like what eventually happened to Blue Burst.

[[Ayumi]]

When is the earliest a private server can run this game? I'm wondering if the official servers have to be shut down first like what eventually happened to Blue Burst.

Couldn't they do just like PSU Clementine and make it's own client/exe?

[r00tabaga]

I'd love that.

[Sizustar]

When is the earliest a private server can run this game? I'm wondering if the official servers have to be shut down first like what eventually happened to Blue Burst.

In the year 2027

[[Ayumi]]

There was no "learning" done with PSU. SoJ was slow giving SoA things to work with, and then all together stopped and expected money to still be rolling in from it for some reason. Obviously, it lost them money and made it no longer profitable, so they pulled the plug. It died because they sabotaged themselves. SoJ put no effort into the localization of the Phantasy Star series since even before PSU. It really started when they started segregating us. They threw scraps at SoA, didn't let them advertise adequately, and expected it to pay off while they babied their Japanese audience.

SoA may not be good at the whole consistency thing in terms of translation, but one thing they're actually good at is SPEED. They actually work REALLY QUICKLY. Translating something as small as ONE little update doesn't even take a week. A whole year's worth of content only takes a couple months. This isn't speculation, it's actually done that quickly. They can only work with what they're given by SoJ, do what they're told to do by SoJ, and say what they're told to say by SoJ.

Here, they aren't allowing SoA to say it's cancelled despite everyone knowing it fucking is, and are blaming them for there being "no interest" and "no money to be made," which only happened because SoJ kept playing stop-and-go with the local release until it was too late. They're letting SoA take the fall for it as well, as they always have.

They haven't "learned" shit. They self-sabotaged so they had an excuse to give a giant middle finger to everywhere that isn't Japan and they've been doing it for years.

Can we please automatically close these kinds of threads? It's the same stuff being said over and over. At least we can complain about new stuff in content updates.

You say they didn't learn anything then pretty much explained they did.
They realized they can't halfass to get profit so they decided not to bother at all.
That's what I call leaning.

[Z-0]

When it comes to private servers for PSO1, GC and BB servers existed long before the official ones shut down. The first V2 server was only created after V2 shut down though, I think.

There is already one in the works for PSO2, and without going into too much detail, PSO2 is like PSO1 in that the client does most of the work so all you have to do is get the server to respond correctly. I could see one happening next year or the year after.

[r00tabaga]

Thanks Z-O! Can you PM me a link of this said server when it goes live?

[Gama]

not sure if we can link to it, a google search will lead you to it.

[r00tabaga]

We can PM whatever we want here. Google shows nothing right now. Only PSO & PSU private servers.

[Ghalion]

Just to be sure, currently the most progressed (and only as far as I know) pso2 private server project is the one being developed by a dude who has 'cyber' in their name right?

[The Walrus]

pretty sure we're allowed to say cyberkitsune since he's the proxy dude and it's in the tweaker too...

[ArcaneTechs]

When it comes to private servers for PSO1, GC and BB servers existed long before the official ones shut down. The first V2 server was only created after V2 shut down though, I think.

There is already one in the works for PSO2, and without going into too much detail, PSO2 is like PSO1 in that the client does most of the work so all you have to do is get the server to respond correctly. I could see one happening next year or the year after.
still the matter of the Cease and Desist order whenever it happens from Sega of Japan, even if it's a whole "tactic" to get Sega of America to act on this, whatever legal issues go on may be bad for AIDA and the rest of them

[Ghalion]

pretty sure we're allowed to say cyberkitsune since he's the proxy dude and it's in the tweaker too...

Help, men in tuxedos donning fully automatic rifles are busting down my front door for mentioning it, I'm telling them it's your fault but they wont listen!

Seriously, I know THAT much but given how beaty-aroundy-the-bushy people were being in this thread I thought I'd play along, maybe Aida was given heck for being pretty open about advertising the server previously and people have since learned to respect the whole 'don't discuss private servers' rule.

edit: kinda off topic, but back when PSO2Jpn was still in the beta phases, I seem to recall this forum somewhat priding itself that a person or two actually working for sega came on here from time to time... or people here knew people there.. osmething like that... is that no longer the case?

[yoshiblue]

edit: kinda off topic, but back when PSO2Jpn was still in the beta phases, I seem to recall this forum somewhat priding itself that a person or two actually working for sega came on here from time to time... or people here knew people there.. osmething like that... is that no longer the case?

For all I know, how we acted back then caused a strained, if not damaged, relationship to happen more or less.

[HIT0SHI]

edit: kinda off topic, but back when PSO2Jpn was still in the beta phases, I seem to recall this forum somewhat priding itself that a person or two actually working for sega came on here from time to time... or people here knew people there.. osmething like that... is that no longer the case?

Are you talking about Edward, who was one of the admins from PSU (Xbox 360)?

[landman]

The people that worked on Sega and lurked and posted around here: 1. Got fired (or left), 2. Left Sega and joined again, and now his job is exclusively the Sonic community (that doesn't mean he stopped liking pso, of course).

I don't think users being "mean" to Sega would affect at all their decision to be in contact with the community, they are professionals after all.

[Ghalion]

@Hitoshi
No clue, not sure if you can see how many posts I've made here but I imagine it's been less than 100, over the course of years. I'm pretty inactive here, so I'm not knowledageable about much content here, that and my memory isn't the best with names and dates...That being said, thanks for the response.

@landman
Thanks, but even if it's the case regarding 'moving to sonic'... I don't know terribly many professional game devs that visit fan-forums for their job...and if it wasn't part of their job and was merely out of personal interest, I don't see why working on sonic now should change their habits... I suspect someone might say NDA blah blah blah, but I'm pretty sure the NDA is MORE strict on people working on said project than people who are NOT working on it =P

[landman]

I suspect someone might say NDA blah blah blah, but I'm pretty sure the NDA is MORE strict on people working on said project than people who are NOT working on it =P
I will guess you didn't hear about that guy that participated in a podcast for a very tiny website, talked a little about his job at Nintendo, the podcast run like water around the community, Nintendo found out, and fired the guy. That happened just a couple of months ago.

I don't remember Edward coming to pso-w other than do his job when he was gamemaster in PSU, and Ruby? of course Ruby was here even before he started working at Sega, I'm sure he lurks when he has the time, but that doesn't change he fact his job is the Sonic community, and if he follows pso2 news it's provably on his free time.

[ArcaneTechs]

Edward, Ruby, Chillaura, the golden days.....then shit happened

[r00tabaga]

Ruby Eclipse a.k.a. Aaron Weber
Ahhh, those were the days...

[jooozek]

i only remember RubyEclipse from stirring up shit in spiral knights pvp all the time, in that game you could use the real money currency to avoid the cooldown from dying which his guild was masters in :wacko: tho since SEGA published i bet he got a monthly allowance for it or something :wacko:

[Ghalion]

I see, a bit of a shame, but thanks again for the info!