Now, to finish off our series, we turn our focus to PSO2 Meseta Phantasy Star Online 2, that came in the West two decades after the launch of the Dreamcast original -- and eight long years after PSO 2's launch in Japan. Western audiences frequently wondered whether the game would come to North America whatsoever, yet Phantasy Star Online 2 is currently available from the West on Xbox One and Windows PC. This upgrade is being released in lieu of a new episode to deliver the 8-year-old movie engine current, worldwide. Details about New Genesis are light at the moment, but Sega says it will reveal more from the Tokyo Game Show timeframe after this year.
We spoke to Yuji Nakazawa, PSO two North America producer, in regards to the game's long-awaited arrival from the West. Polygon: Please introduce yourself and in your own words explain your function on the PSO two team. I have been off and on of the group. I started with Phantasy Star Universe at Japan and then also [functioned on] the release of this North American Xbox version of PSU.
I am the manager for the U.S. launch of the Xbox version in addition to the Asian launch of PSO 2, that was released before the U.S. version. So I am sort of the localization specialist. Is it a relief now that PSO two is finally from the West, for most of the English-speaking PSO fans who've been asking for it for ages? There is a feeling of relief [because] there was a lot of planning that went into the development; for instance, Sega U.S. and Sega Japan took surveys from the fans about what they wanted from the game. But as an online game, I believe the true challenge is in keeping the service moving forward. We heard a lot of players say they've been waiting eight long years with this release. So we were really pleased about that.
Is this one reason the Western servers are different from the Japanese servers? So you can roll out the later episodes at the right pace, instead of ditch all the Western players onto the same servers as players in Asia, who've experienced all that content already?
It's a little bit of either. The main reason we put it on a different server for your U.S. launch was supposed to control the rolling out of their stories and also due to host capacity. The ease of play is just one of the selling points of the game, and also the space of the servers to the players affects latency, so we knew we wanted to have the servers closer to our players in North America. And although there are hardcore lovers [who'll play regularly and explore all the content] in the North American region, there are still many who aren't knowledgeable about the franchise, and we did not believe it would be reasonable to release eight years' worth of content at buy Phantasy Star Online 2 Meseta the same time. Can it have to do with the microtransaction system and in-game buys being very distinct for Japan?