The Current State Of PSO2

[Eclward@Sega]

Hello everyone. It's been quite a while and now that I am at liberty to do so, there are some things I would like to share.

Being an official public relations rep with Sega put severe restrictions on what I could and could not say, and it was very upsetting to be assigned the task of monitoring this forum and listening to the frustration of you all, the fans and being more or less obligated to respond only with variations of the same response. But it's important for you all to know that during this time, I really *DID* compile and present your collective posts albeit they ultimately fell on deaf ears. Although I am no longer employed by SEGA (having willfully resigned to move on to different opportunities) I was still legally required to refrain from divulging information pertinent to the game that was not already cleared to be released for a specific length of time; this has since lapsed and now I am free to speak to you without fear of legal reprisal.

Phantasy Star Online 2 is *NOT* going to be released in the West. It is not simply being delayed; it is in fact, cancelled.

The reason for this is that projected sales and profit margins are miniscule in comparison to those projected (and ultimately fulfilled, exceeded even) in Asian territories. The cost effectiveness of creating and maintaining official servers to provide the PSO2 service to such a comparatively small (although avid, especially from my experience in the forums) just isn't deemed to be worthwhile when those resources are better concentrated where there is more money to be made.

Although I do believe that you all, the fans deserve to know that there is a specific reason why SEGA has neglected to publicly announce this, and it does bring quite a sense of relief to be able to tell it; while it IS true that PSO2 will not be localized to the West, there ARE plans to do so with some of the other Phantasy Star titles recently released, as well as ones to be released in the very near future. To openly publicize after so much media promotion of PSO2 that it has been decided NOT to deliver would be detrimental to the advertisement of these future games.

Again, I am truly sorry for having been obligated to withhold this information. It is my personal experience in the industry that it is ultimately you, the fans that are responsible for the successes of SEGA (or any company in the gaming industry for that matter.) With that being said, I hope to find that same sense of support over at NCSOFT (where I now work in Public Relations.)

Best of wishes to everyone!

[GutsGO]

Thanks Edward for the enlightening post and everything you've done for us over the years. It's very nice to finally get closure on this subject.

[EvilMag]

Ok ESEElward. Thank you.

[Lostbob117]

Fake, obviously.

[Arksenth]

<_< Yes, they would totally let an employee go without making them sign a nondisclosure agreement.

SEGA might be dumb with a lot of things, but they aren't dumb with money, you know.

[Gardios]

Why not Eclvvarcl@SEGA though?

[Zyrusticae]

Fake, obviously.

Fake or not... I believe him.

I mean seriously, let's not mince words here, if this thing comes at all there wouldn't even be a point to it. It'd be finished before it even started.

Let us all just finally accept that the JP servers are the place to be, and if you're not there then you never really cared that much to begin with.

[infiniteeverlasting]

^LOL, i'm not going to agree with that statement, but how do we validate the legitimacy of this thread?

[Shadowth117]

Note the cl instead of a d in the name.

Edit: As a side note though, I'd believe that completely. As far as I'm concerned, that's canon.

[Gardios]

^LOL, i'm not going to agree with that statement, but how do we validate the legitimacy of this thread?

You just accept it and continue to play on jPSO2 like nothing happened.

If it finally comes out in 2020, act surprised and continue to play on jPSO2 anyway.