Sega recently announced that Phantasy Star Online 2 will be heading to Japanese PS4’s, sometime in 2016. Originally released July 2012, the game has still yet to be released to Western gamers.
As you can imagine, Sega’s decision to keep it that way for the past 2 years, hasn’t exactly gone down well with gamers.
The excuse
Once upon a time Sega may have had the excuse that any MMO game without the WOW label, would have been a major business risk in the west. However, that was before IP’s such as DOTA2, Final Fantasy XIV and The Secret World seriously boosted the genre’s popularity.
Sega need to realise the popularity of MMO’s, here in the west. Phantasy Star Online 2 may not be the most demanding game graphically, but it sure looks like a blast to play!
Whatever way you look at it, one thing is certain…Sega really don’t have any excuse not to bring the game to Europe and the States. Phantasy Star Online 2 has too much potential in terms of both market and expansion possibilities.
The way forward
Phantasy Star Online 2 was originally released for PC. What doesn’t make any sense here, is that PC games don’t sell well in Japan. This means if Sega needed the figures to add up before heading to the west…they were seriously looking for numbers in all the wrong places!
Phantasy Star Online 2 boasts a pretty cool weather system. Hey, it’s also an unwritten rule that whenever you’re on an alien planet, it’s raining…
However, now PSO is heading to Sony’s new box of tricks, it’s looking more likely we’ll see the game in the west. A console release means more players, more testing, more tweaking and more paying customers. This could very well take the chill out of Sega overnight, allowing them to feel much more comfortable with a European and US launch.
Let’s hope it works out like this but for now, Destiny is Bungie’s rather crafty mash of Halo and Phantasy Star Online. So, if you’re yet to check that out, it could well be your fix until we hear more from Sega.
