Playstation 2 Online at OnlineConsoles.com

So far it has been confirmed that Phantasy Star Universe is coming to the Playstation 2. The game has not been announced for other consoles as of yet. Only the PS2 and PC versions have been officially announced. I'm going to spare the speculation on pre-release features. It is a real grind trying to guess and go on rumour's to make a news post on games before they are released. Especially for a game based on Phantasy Star. Plus features can change anytime before the game gets released. I will be posting about game features later down the road as development on this game progresses. You are probably wondering what this post is even about. Gamers be warned, I will be talking about multiple platforms here. Prepare yourselves.

So, the question is, why would Sega bring the next online based Phantasy Star game to the PS2 and PC. Why on earth would they not release it on the GameCube? Why not Xbox with its built in HD? We need to take a long hard look at where Sega is now, and where PSO has progressed along it's lifespan. PSO started out on the Dreamcast, then got released on the PC. That "generation" of PSO was it's first phase. Sega was First Party back then running games on their own hardware. Then suddenly things shifted and Sega had to go multi-platform. Oddly enough Sega decided to bring PSO Episode 1 & 2 to the Nintendo GameCube. This was early on in the online for the PS2, Xbox and GC. Nobody had any idea then that PSO on the Cube would be it's major and only online game.

Over the course of the past 2 years Sonic Team has carved itself a huge nitch from scratch on the GameCube. While Sony and MS were bragging about hitting 1 million gamers playing online via their consoles, Sonic Team actually had well over 300,000 subscribers playing PSO on the GameCube platform world wide. Then they even released a whole new PSO game with Episode III on the cube during a time period when everyone knew the cube was never going to get full online support from Nintendo. They not only released the original ep1&2 but also an updated Plus version with patches, and online exclusive content available offline.

Sonic Team worked really hard, and basically made the cube something worth playing online for just PSO alone.

Sonic Team did release the game on the Xbox, however in both Japan and the US/EU, the game really didn't take off as well as it did on GameCube. It saw a decent number of players which basically sucked up a little extra market share. I'm not going to get into why, there are a lot of factors, in the end the GC PSO online community has been #1 over the past 2 years.

Next up on the scene, the PC version of Ep1&2 titled, PSO Blue Burst was released. With this being released in both Japan and the United States, the GC's reign as #1 online community for PSO will start to shift. It will most likely split between GC and the PC. Phantasy Star Online has never been online for the PC officially in the United States. So this is a pretty big deal.

So what in the hell does all of this have to do with the Playstation 2 and Phantasy Star Universe? I will tell you.

Up until now Sonic Team has been working on the Nintendo GameCube with PSO. A game console with barely any network gaming presence, and the system only has 1.5GB discs. While most of their current market is on the GameCube, the system and it's lack of other online titles would be a challenge to put Phantasy Star Universe on it. Atleast to launch the game. Now here is where it gets interesting.

Why choose the Playstation 2? The PS2 is a much bigger sea. Phantasy Star has never existed on this system yet, and it has the largest RPG fanbase than any other console on the market. If sega wants to eat up a big slice of the RPG pie, the Playstation 2 is the place to do it. However it's not only market share that is appealing. The Playstation 2 has a full DVD format. This gives them LOTS of space to work with. Not only that, but with other games patching to the large 8mb memory card is possible. So this may have been a factor as well. Possibly sony is going to release an external USB harddrive for slim models that would be compatible with PSU and FFXI. This could be another reason why Sonic Team decided to go with the PS2.

Why choose the PC? Well, it has been reported that PS2 and PC players will be able to play together a la FFXI Online. Having a game called Phantasy Star "Universe" and incorporating cross platform functionality makes perfect sense. Sonic Team wouldn't have been able to do this with 2 consoles. PS2 vs Xbox? Ha! Maybe when hell freezes over. Another big factor about the PC is it's not a game console. It is not anything. No single company owns "The Computer". On the PC game companies can build their own empires. Sega can make original games and have complete control over them. They are not bound to the company that owns a certain console. With sega's recent move to bring Blue Burst to the US, and Shenmue Online currently in the works, it is clear that Sega is using the PC game realm to their advantage.

As far as the xbox, it has extremly poor japanese support and it's overall rpg fanbase is limited. While it does have a functional, playable, PSO online community running on it. It's just not the prime candidate to run PSU on at launch. Plus I highly doubt Microsoft would allow gamers from the PC and Xbox to play along side each other. Since they want to keep Xbox Live, xbox oriented.

So, does all of this mean that PSU won't be coming to the Xbox, GameCube, or even Next Generation platforms? Who knows. When PSO Ep1&2 came to GameCube, nobody expected it to come to the xbox. Nobody expected Episode III to come to cube. Finally, you can be damn certain nobody expected Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst to get released for the PC in North America.

One logical assumption that can be made, is maybe Sonic Team wants to get the game running, online and patched a few times. Then bring it over to the GameCube after they have worked hard to fit it onto the 1.5GB disc. Sega has been taking more steps with online cheating as of late, especially with Blue Burst.

With that being said, I would like to say that a Phantasy Star game with Online coming to the PS2 is one of the best things that could have happened. Now each area of OnlineConsoles will have something in common. The Dreamcast, GameCube and Playstation 2 will all have a Phantasy Star Online community. It ties all 3 areas of OC together.

Without further delay, I present the Phantasy Star Universe forum! So we can speculate, discuss, and ramble about features from now until release. Enjoy!