JP PSU Gets a Third Expansion; PS2 Support to be Removed

Sega of Japan announced on Thursday that Phantasy Star Universe would be receiving a third expansion update that includes new environments and missions for the game. Images of some new areas were posted with the announcement on the JP PSU Web site.

In related news, Sega also announced that PS2 support for PSU will be dropped after March 31, 2011, one year to the day after the US/EU PC/PS2 servers shut down. PS2 players are being encouraged to upgrade to the PC version of the game, which is a free download.

These announcements are great news for PC players of PSU in Japan, and in my opinion, even better news for potential future players of Phantasy Star Online 2. With this news, Sega seems to be indicating the direction they are interested in taking for the next iteration of the series, and this is a great start.

Once PS2 support for Japanese PSU has been removed, players will only be able to play the game online on a PC. It's no coincidence that Sega then decided to give players some real new content for the PC version. Clearly the game developers have realized that the consoles are holding back the development and expansion of the PSU world. This causes the game to become dull and boring, and as a result, players leave.

If this is in fact the case, a console release of PSO2 looks very much in doubt, which would be fantastic. For several months, I've been arguing the potential consequences of putting PSO2 on the consoles. The only way to create a truly immersive, expandable game world is to release the game only on the PC.

Recently, it was also discovered that Phantasy Star Online 2 is further along in development than many people may think. Hopefully, this means that a release in 2011 is not out of the question (at least not for Japan, anyway). And as we all know, the game is still only slated to be released on the PC, so perhaps that's more validation that Sega is interested in keeping the game alive with new content for a long time like it is now apparently doing with PSU.

As a side note, the odds of seeing the new PC content arrive on Xbox 360 someday are very, very slim. Yes, the Xbox 360 has a hard drive, but it sounds like this content is being developed for the PC specifically and I would be very surprised if Sega of Japan ever made the decision to port it to the Xbox 360. Of course, you never know...