Answer statistics for Questions 4 and 5 were posted today here.

Question 4: Where is the guild card of your partner located?

68% said that their partners card was in the first page. The most selected answer was that the partners card is on Page 1 at 35%, 33% of the answers said their partners card was the very first card.

Question 5: When you cannot find your partner how often do you search for them using their guild card?

The most popular answer was that 29.4% of people search every 5 minutes.

According to this news the XBox version of PSO will require a XBox-Live account to be able to access even offline mode. This will probably not affect many of those who do plan on playing many other online games. One thing to note is the requirement to purchase a hunter license still with Sega in order to play online. So this does dispel the rumors of the XBox version being cheaper, sadly. The reason for requiring XBox live for offline play was since the JP release was a Pack-In for XBox live which of course would require the XBox live service so due to time constraints there was no time to take this requirement out without delaying the US release.

There's another article about it here at gamespot. There was talk about the Voice Chat system in which you will hear only the 7 closest people to you in the lobby. The users you currently can hear will have a speaker icon floating above their heads.

The Xbox version will be on the same Quest release schedule as the Gamecube version. One thing that differs is in the US servers for the Xbox version will not be linked with any foreign servers for security reasons. Microsoft expects PSO for Xbox to begin shipping to retail stores around February 25th and expect it to be on the shelves 2-10 days after.

The game comes with 2 free months of credit towards your hunter license.

Here is the official Press release:

"Microsoft Games Studios today announced that it will distribute SEGA's "Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II" for Xbox in North America. The award-winning online role-playing series, which had more than 400,000 registered online users on the SEGA Dreamcast, arrives on store shelves this coming March and will be playable through Xbox LIVE?. In addition, the Xbox Communicator headset is fully compatible with "Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II," enabling gamers from across North America to chat with each other with ease.

To play the game online, Xbox LIVE? subscribers will be required to buy a "hunter's license," which gives gamers the ability to travel on wild adventures with other "Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II" gamers. It also provides access to a plethora of online exclusive content such as seasonal quests, downloads and rare in-game items. The hunter's license is free of charge for the first two months, and after that will carry a service fee of $8.95 per month.

Developed by famed SEGA game designer Yuji Naka and SONICTEAM, "Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II" features two games in one: Episode I contains all of the content from "Phantasy Star Online" and "Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2," while Episode II brings gamers back for an all-new adventure on the planet of Ragol. Gamers will search unchartered areas, battle unique monsters and discover numerous items. Both episodes can be played online or offline with up to four gamers. Additional game modes include Challenge and Battle. Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound is also supported in "Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II." An Xbox LIVE? account is required to play "Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II" both offline and online. "

Thanks to Yurika and umipixie for this info

All PSO related webmasters and website owners please note: According to news from Sonic Team's PSO Xbox Page, the user agreement rules for XBox PSO concerning to use of Image Snapshots from the game has been updated.

It appears all screenshots and images need to be shown as copyright of Sonic Team to be able to be used and posted. All Xbox PSO screenshots need to have "(C) SONICTEAM / SEGA, 2000, 2003" shown along with the screenshot. You can only publish screenshots on websites without the inscibed copyright information if you have written permission from Sonic Team.

Sonic Team also says that this rule may soon apply to all other versions of PSO.

Screenshots may not be changed or altered other than for the purposes for an idea contest or for wallpapers. This includes running filters or painting on it in image editing softwares. You are however, allowed to trim it. You can enlarge or reduce the screenshot as long as it stay in a rectangular format. In the case where a user would like to use official images and screenshots for purposes other than stated above, the user would have to contact Sonic Team with the user's name, email, website address and title. Please note that this applies to all official Sonic Team PSO illustrations and images including the ones you find on Sonic Team websites.

All fan related works, including fan art and fan fiction are allowed if it's for non profit purposes. This would mean that PSOW will not be able to sell PSOW related goods such a t-shirts and stickers as planned in the future. Sorry guys!

More details can be found in the user agreement webpage here. Please read Q2 and more importantly, Q5 in the webpage.

Update:
DC version copyright message: (C) SEGA / SONICTEAM, 2000.
Ver.2 DC version copyright message: (C) SEGA / SONICTEAM, 2000, 2001.
Windows version copyright message: (C) SONICTEAM / SEGA, 2000, 2001.
GC Episode 1 & 2 version copyright message: (C) SONICTEAM / SEGA, 2000, 2002.
XBox Episode 1 & 2 version copyright message: (C) SONICTEAM / SEGA, 2000, 2003.

Use of the official PSO Font is allowed.

Since January 16 all challenge modes were available on XBox PSO but so CMode 2-9 were taken down in today's server maintenance between 8am til 9 am. Sonic Team now asks that you wait for the proper scheduled release to play CMode stages 2-9.

If you completed Challenge Modes 1-9 and acquired the Special Rare from Stage 9, you are asked to drop the item, throw it away or bank it so that it may be deleted. This item is detected as a cheated item currently so using it can result in your account being banned.

The original posting of this news can be seen here.

Again, please note that this does not happen on the GC, just on the XBox.

The second Mini-Event for Famitsu Cup is coming to the Singing By The Beach quest.

The goal in this new event will be to continuously press the A button in a given time limit. If the number of continuous hits among all that do this quest reaches 1 million a new door for Famitsu Cup will open.

The Mini-Event will be held: Friday, January 31, 2003 - Monday, February 3rd 2003

There will be a server maintenance tommorrow that will activate this new event.

Maintenance Times
Event Start Maintenance: Fri., January 31 - 17:00-18:00
Event Ending Maintenance: Mon., February 3 - 18:00-19:00

The official Sonic Team news posting on this is shown here.

Well the Damage Calculator has been updated to include all levels of Shifta and Zalure to apply into calculations. I am now testing a Technique Damage calculator which I hope should be complete by this weekend (Should be a nice tool for forces to use).

We have added new guides to the Techniques guides section of the site. These guides have statistics for all techniques in the game. These stats include: Power, TP cost, Range (in meters), and MST Requirements for all technique levels.

More to come so keep checking in

There are several threads on Sonic Teams JP free and secret bbs's. Some are open posts like in the threads here and here. There are replies to official Sonic Team posts regarding server downtime complaining about the recent FSOD's from the double-save change here in the free bbs and here in the secret bbs.

Seems these problems are very wide spread among all PSO users, it shouldn't be long until we do see some official acceptance of the problem from Sonic Team if these posts continue.

Update: Added a second open thread on the subject.