Article: Interview attempt 1.0: The results

[gideon]

God writes, "With the recent email from our friends across the sea, some doubt was cast over the release of PSOver.2 in the U.S. I personnaly tried contacting Sega employees through several methods. Click "Read more.." to see the results of the unofficial interview attempt!"

The first attempt was over the popular messaging client AIM:

Gideon: Hi, sorry to bug you but I was wondering if I could ask you something

AnonymousSegaEmployee: k

Gideon: Do you have any ideas on if PSO ver.2 is U.S. bound?

AnonymousSegaEmployee: it's coming

Gideon: sweet.. that is, version 2.0 not the full sequal PSO 2?

AnonymousSegaEmployee: that is all I can say

AnonymousSegaEmployee: sorry

AnonymousSegaEmployee: you should really e-mail us...

Gideon: well people have...

Gideon: and get different results

AnonymousSegaEmployee: for such info...

Gideon: and I called

Gideon: and they could'nt say :/

AnonymousSegaEmployee: ask to speak to sales



Are you wondering what 1-800-USA-SEGA sales had to say about it?

Well some highlights of the brief conversation are:

"The only information I have is that there will be a Phantasy Star Online version 2 in the US"

"The second version is in the works, no details are available at this time."

"The second part of Phantasy Star Online will be coming"


While by no means concrete assurance this does break some of the new doubt about the PSOver.2 release here in the states. Let's hope!

yeah hardly anyone, answering phones or emails will have that info yet, untill some one that can talk to some one high up on the chain confirms its up in the air, but i have a feeling ver.2 will come, lets hope it does.

Me personally, I think it's obvious that it will be released here. When, is up in the air. It's a well known fact that America is the bigest market for video games. If you're going to make a killing with your video game, you better sell it in America. Not to mention the massive user base of Dreamcast owners, oh and not to scoff at the 200,000+ registered PSO users.
To not release that game in the US, would finacial suicide for Sega. Sega is now in a position to reclaim some lost glory. They will now have to compete against the other 3rd party developers across multiple platforms. They will also need to regain consumer trust.
If they chose NOT to release PSO ver2 stateside, i cannot see too many people, including myself, ever buying a Sega product again, or getting TOO interested in it.
But i have chosen not to worry. The game WILL be released in the US. Too much anticipation, participation, and hype for them NOT to:)
My 2-cents.
BSM
PSO username: Snigom Ver.2 lv98 and The Gaikotsu lv21

[RyoGeo]

Why is it that fans of video game...anything, always seem to know more about the product than the people answering the phones? Granted, there are probably some restrictions being placed on what people can say, which is understandable. But the fact that Gideon has to be the one to confirm the difference between Ver. 2 and PSO2 is just sad. And this is in no way limited to Sega.
The enthusiast has more information, but getting confirmation on the info is near impossibel because the phone rep doesn't really know the product. They're looking at a screen and the screen has words and those are the words they relay to the caller. The difference between version 2 and PSO2 is not clear to them because, not being players, they have no idea what the difference is. Good lord. We won't know if this is coming out until it hits. Or doesn't...or PSO2 comes out.
"You mean version 2 or PSO2?"
"Um...well...there's a 2 here."
"See that doesn't help me. There are 2 different products. PSO2 And PSO version 2."
"Yeah, that's what I said, 2."
I call this the mobeus customer service call. Or, if you like, the Lou Costello school of customer support.

[TheSilverWolf]

Sega also kept telling me that PSO would support the Broadband Adaptor out of the box, and it didn't. I finally got it working with the import version, and when I called Sega to tell them about it, they acted like it was a big surprise.


Most of the people answering the phone at Sega (support and sales) don't have a clue what they are talking about. They get fact sheets passed down to them form their managers, and they just read those off to the customers. The last time I called, they told me that if I wanted to talk to someone who actually had experience with the games and was "In the know", I would have to call the 1-900 number. I really think the only people at Sega who really know anything are the Japanese developers, and Sega is very careful to keep them from passing any real info out to us.


It's all a big conspiracy! We'll just have to be good little PSO junkies and sit on our thumbs waiting for them to be kind enough to release some stronger PSO crack to quench our hunger. I don't know about you, but if they decide not to release it in the states, I'm going to buy a plane ticket and fly over to Japan and make Sonic Team burn me a copy directly. Anyone want to chip in to my travel account?

if it's true ,i hope they won't forget europeans pso addicted players!!!!!!come on sega ,i always used to be a sega maniacs , i never failed to support ur product . it's a shame to want breaking pso community!!!!!!
a frenchy guy

[Xaken]

You ever wonder WHY the game companies never seem to want to tell us anything? For some reason I never gave it much thought, until this.
It all comes down to money, and in this case how information can effect stock. Though I don't want to go into a long economic lesson, to be blunt, the stock market is a ever fickle thing. The price of stock can change drastically based mearly on what the public believes a company is up to.
Now, if we look at the world of video game programming, things are not as cut dry as: think of a game idea, develope said game until it's shipped out. I would not be suprised if many more games die on the development room floor than ever make it into the stores.
This makes for a bad combination. Internatally, the gaming industry is very volite. Who knows if this project or that will ever see the little of day. Thousands of randoms concepts poping up all the time. If the market had direct access to all this information it would be going wild. So, to control the stock, you control the information. The developers can't afford to conferm or deny anything, because the facts my change as soon as the next day, and that sort of shift would destroy the price of shares.
Now we have PSO v2. It's exisitance is known, but we don't know where it's going. Sega can't tell us one way or another, because they probably haven't made up their MINDS yet. Even to say "we think so" would be too much, because if they pull out later it could significantly damage the company.
Anyway, since it all comes down to money (as it always does), we might as well consider PSO v2 in those terms. Would Sega stand to make a significant profit off of a US release? Well, probably not. In Japan, the players are paying just to continue playing the game. There Sega would be silly not to consider that, to keep the players interested, they need to keep offering more. And as long as the players are still interested, the players will keep paying.
In the US and in the UK, the sale is the only way Sega has to make money off of us. And, that's already been done. The sale has been made. Now they have to spend money running servers, but with not continuing profit. Sega would actually benefit more by making us LOOSE interest in the game. We stop playing, and they can stop spending money on the servers. Ever better, we'll move on to the NEXT game. And it's the NEXT game that gives them a chance at making money off of us again.
I'm not saying it can't happen, or even that it wont happen, but it's very questionable. So, as they told me as a went in to take my SATs "Hope for the best, but expect the worst".

[Russian]

I had called Sega last night in an unrelated matter, and casually asked the tech when we were done if he knew if the, as I put it, "PSO version 2 append disk" was to be released in America.
He said (quote), "Yes it is. Cool thing is, it'll have broadband support, too."
So I'm pretty excited now... just need to get me a BBA. LOL
Russian

[buck_shot]

Boy do I know that feeling. I wrote to sega's sale office on the 22nd and I got the same answer
"PSO2 will be coming out some time this year." they said "No PSO Ver.2 not PSO2" I wrote back, but I have still not gotten an answer. Man, I wish they would tell their sales people there are two different games coming out.

[DrifterX]

Regretfully, there is no word on the release of PSO in the us, sorry to be the barrer of bad news, but I dont think we will see a us release of PSO ver2, as a tester of sega i hear first hand any changes, but there still iffy about releassing ANY news about PSO. If I hear any news you will be the first.
Sencerly, DRIFTER X!!!!