Yesterday, a popular PSU fansite posted a translation of an article from Famitsu.com in which Sonic Team discusses the successes and failures of Phantasy Star Universe and Phantasy Star Online.
At the end of the article is a very interesting piece of information. Sonic Team compiled a graph showing the server population trends for the JP PC/PS2, NA PC/PS2, and XBox 360 game servers. What it shows is that while the JP PC/PS2 and XBox 360 server populations have stabilized over the last few months, the NA PC/PS2 servers have posted a slow 9-month decline.
Apparently, this information has been translated into some sort of nasty rumor that Sega is planning to pull the plug on the NA/EU PC/PS2 servers sometime in the future. I'm not sure how that happened, but it certainly seems baseless right now. Sega of America reps have stated on at least one occasion that they would not shut down the PC/PS2 servers if the game remained profitable overall in the United States and Europe. I interpret that to mean that if both the PC/PS2 and XBox 360 servers are pulling in enough combined money to keep things afloat, then everything will be fine.
However, if the PC/PS2 servers were to shut down, I think a lot of people would quit for good. Getting started in this game can be difficult, and many people might not want to put in the effort again. Plus, the XBox 360 version of PSU is still plagued with various performance problems that might make some PC players go crazy.
The bottom line, though, is that there's no reason to panic yet. Sega of America has not provided any indications that they plan to shut down the servers now or in the future. The PSU community seems to eat these kinds of rumors up, and I still can't understand why that is. Just keep on playing, and deal with the problems when (and if) they arise.
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