First, news of massive losses prompted the company to announce that it would be canceling some games in the United States and Europe. The list of games was not provided, though Sega did state that profitable franchises such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Football Manager, Total War, and Aliens would not be canceled.
Second, following this announcement, Sega of America was hit with massive layoffs. According to IGN, the majority of layoffs were QA-related, though other positions also got axed. Obviously, it's never good to see things like this happen and we hope the people affected can get back on their feet quickly.
As you might expect, this news made Phantasy Star Universe players uneasy. On the official PSU forums, GM Edward assured players that near-term events would go on as planned, but couldn't provide any insight as to what the future holds for the remaining regional servers. We'll be watching this situation unfold in the coming weeks to see if Sega considers the Xbox 360 version profitable enough to continue. Stay tuned.
As for PSO2, the game has not been canceled in Japan (and likely won't be). The closed beta test is scheduled to begin at the end of April, with an open beta and final release likely to follow in June or July. The game has not currently been announced for the United States or Europe. However, I don't think this means that the game should be considered "canceled". The four "surviving" franchises that Sega listed in its press release should not be considered an all-inclusive list of titles that have not been canceled.
In fact, no definitive list of canceled titles was even provided (parts bolded for emphasis):
We conducted detailed reviews of earnings projections for titles targeted toward the U.S. and European markets and decided to narrow down sales titles from the following period and after to strong IPs, such as “Sonic the Hedgehog,”, “Football Manager”, “Total War” and “Aliens” which are expected to continue posting solid earnings. In accordance with this, we are canceling the development of some game software titles.
In other words, anything said about specific canceled games right now is pure speculation, so until Sega actually says that the Western markets won't be getting PSO2, there's no reason to panic.
Also consider the fact that Sega appears to be considering mostly digital distribution for PSO2, which could save a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on packaging and pressing discs. Hopefully Sega could recoup the costs of localization and other maintenance expenses through the sale of items in the cash shop.
If all else fails, we'll just have to play PSO2 on the Japanese servers—but right now we just don't know what the fallout will be from this news. All we can do is sit tight and hope for the best!
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