Phantasy Star Online 2 coming to PS4 along with 'Reborn: Episode 4' update!

[Aki-at]

They released 2 Etrian Odyssey games after being bought by SEGA. If anything, Atlus USA is now bringing more games over than ever before while SEGA America is doing less and less localization for in-house IPs since, well, ever. Wasn't even this bad during the Saturn era.

Yep and look at how much trouble SEGA Japan went through to get Miku over here and now look at it, we've gotten three Miku games in 2 years.

There's clearly a lack of interest in Japanese games by the Western branch, we didn't even get Chain Chronicle, how risk aversive do you have to be to not even bother localising mobile games?

I definitely think if SEGA America put more interest in PSO2 than Sonic Boom, we'd have had it by now. Perhaps the next step is going to be SEGA Japan has its own local localisation branch for English speakers if SEGA West isn't interested.

[Aki-at]

lol why Hero Bank tough.

Let me show you this little picture right here and it should show you Sega's mindset:





Sega clearly divides the market. In 08, I remember a report saiyng "doing our best to make our Japanese hits work abroad". This doesnt apply here.

SEGA Japan believes Japanese games aren't liked by Westerns. This isn't a hard conclusion for them to come up with when SEGA America probably keeps telling them no one is interested in Japanese robots.

[Happy Cat]

Before panicking keep in mind Kotaku just probably asked their local SEGA West PR person. What else do you expect to hear from such a branch. If we don't hear any news about it coming west from TGS to around PlayStation experience, then I'll throw up the white flag and give up hope.

[TimmiT]

Hey, how about instead of comparing SEGA not localizing normal games to not localizing an MMO, cause you all don't seem to know that localizing an MMO is much, much harder.

The game would need to have an active community, servers would need to be bought and managed, keep up with all of the updates etc. all of which they'd need to hire extra people for. Aside from that, the game is already a marketing disaster with how they handled the original announcement.

SEGA not localizing games like Yakuza is dumb, yeah. Especially when Atlus does a much better job localizing niche Japanese games. But PSO2 isn't just some niche Japanese game, it's a niche Japanese MMO that's a marketing disaster in the west. The amount of work that'd need to be put into localizing an MMO that was supposed to launch here years ago and still have it be successful is incomparable to the amount of work it'd take to localize any other SEGA game.

So how about you don't act like whiny babies on Twitter about it? I get wanting it to come over, but acting like it'd be sensible for SEGA to still bring it over just shows how little you know about the amount of work it'd take and how risky it is.

[Radrappy]

Considering how even a successful Japanese game like Xenoblade chronicles ultimately lost nintendo money (http://www.gamnesia.com/news/nintendo-worker-says-localizing-games-often-loses-nintendo-money-including-), I'm not surprised that PSO2 hasn't made its way over here.  Customers of niche titles have completely underestimated the costs of localization.

That said, I'm still disappointed given what a tent-pole franchise this is.  I disagree TimmiT that people don't have a right to complain though.  Sega has been abusing the trust of their fans for years now and need to know.  The reason that PSO2 isn't worth bringing over is because Sega fans have all but dissolved.  Our numbers have shrunk to pitiful amounts. 

[Radrappy]

If we don't hear any news about it coming west from TGS to around PlayStation experience, then I'll throw up the white flag and give up hope.

I wouldn't bet on a West-based announcement being made at TGS. 

[TimmiT]

That said, I'm still disappointed given what a tent-pole franchise this is.  I disagree TimmiT that people don't have a right to complain though.  Sega has been abusing the trust of their fans for years now and need to know.  The reason that PSO2 isn't worth bringing over is because Sega fans have all but dissolved.  Our numbers have shrunk to pitiful amounts. 

Oh, I'm not saying that people don't have the right to complain. I'm saying that complaining will make you come across as whiny and entitled.

Yeah, SEGA could have been in a much better position to localize PSO2, and that's their own fault. But then maybe you should complain about how badly SEGA is handling that stuff instead of complaining that SEGA's not doing something that'd likely cause them to lose a lot of money.

[Aki-at]

Hey, how about instead of comparing SEGA not localizing normal games to not localizing an MMO, cause you all don't seem to know that localizing an MMO is much, much harder.

Sure it is harder and much more difficult, however every major gamble SEGA America has pulled (Marvel licenses, Gearbox partnerships, new Sonic brand.) have been massive failures. Yes it might cost them a fair bit but then you have to take these risks to make a gain, before SEGA Japan pushed out Phantasy Star Online 2 the last MMO they had was PSU and it was nowhere near the level PSO2 is.

And honestly, Phantasy Star Online 2 is a much more worthwhile gamble than Sonic Boom and it's not as niche as some people make it out to be, Phantasy Star has always been a successful series. The biggest issue everyone is having is how SEGA West is shunning out literally everything Japanese for whatever reason. Even if it's released a few months from now, I'm sure it'd be successful and more successful than Spiral Knights too.

I should add, SEGA Japan have been localising a bunch of South Korean MMOs for the Japanese market, so it's not like it's some unnaturally risky venture the company has an aversion to. Just one specific branch/region.

EDIT: Okay ignore everything I said, the vitriol is too much, it's too... DELICIOUS. Haha I'm enjoying the meltdowns far too much for my own good.

[Radrappy]

EDIT: Okay ignore everything I said, the vitriol is too much, it's too... DELICIOUS. Haha I'm enjoying the meltdowns far too much for my own good.

where? On twitter?  Share the wealth!

[Aki-at]

so no western release

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/27252-sega-has-no-plans-to-release-phantasy-star-online-2-for-ps4-outside-of-japan/

Something I just realised, Sakai did say as early as May that SEGA is not planning a Playstation 4 release for the game and here we are a few months later talking about the Playstation 4 version.

I'm not entirely hopeful, but something to keep in mind.

where? On twitter?  Share the wealth!

In the comment section of George's post http://segabits.com/blog/2015/08/21/sega-has-no-plans-to-bring-the-playstation-4-version-outside-of-japan/#comments

Sega is so dumb. And that satomi can kiss a drug addicts hole.

... not even a month after the son of the CEO gave that speech of their miserable 10 year track record, they’ve already gone and done this, their first big mistake already, they are simply just prolonging their inevitable demise

I expect more by the end of the day.

[George]

Oh we are coming off as entitled for wanting one game? Seriously...

Sadly this will probably be a case like Shining series and we will probably not see anymore games come over anymore. Sorry but SEGA is one of the biggest 3rd party publishers in Japan, if they wanted to bring it over, they could but they don't want to. They don't care about their core fans, they have made that clear by making deals for other publishers to publish their Japanese output instead of fixing their issues... like shitty marketing and killing their brand name.

Seriously how many shitty games has Sega of America greenlit? Satomi said they killed brand trust in the last 10 years with some titles and I can name a few titles most people here probably forgot about that where funded and where total flops.

Its also quite sad that right now Free-to-Play market is huge in the West. Japanese style ones are gaining quite a bit of ground but the market is starving on Steam. The issue with Americans downloading the game is that most don't bother going through the hassle of spending money in the game because the process is too annoying. So SEGA is literally leaving money on the table.  but hey we are entitled brats for wanting SEGA to publish one game...

[TimmiT]

Oh we are coming off as entitled for wanting one game? Seriously...

No, you're coming off as entitled cause you're making a big deal out of not getting one game. :V

[George]

That's great, I don't really care what you think. Name me one SEGA in-house IP they are planning on publishing in the West that isn't a licensed title?

That's right. Boo-ho, I want a Phantasy Star title. Who cares? Why don't you do what you do and I do what I do? I never called you whiner for wanting a game, I didn't go to your blog posts at Retro where you guys whined that M2 was terrible because their games are on emulators and complained... why are you doing this when I want something? 

[Trippled]

I should add, SEGA Japan have been localising a bunch of South Korean MMOs for the Japanese market, so it's not like it's some unnaturally risky venture the company has an aversion to. Just one specific branch/region.

I wonder why Sega Japan can spend money like this, and Sega in the West gets scraps.

[Aki-at]

I wonder why Sega Japan can spend money like this, and Sega in the West gets scraps.

Think it has less to do with them getting scraps and more with the fact they believe Japanese games are not suited for the Western market. Remember SEGA Europe's Creative Assembly is the biggest single studio in SEGA and SEGA America were allowed to greenlit a TV show and game that had nothing to do with the main Sonic.

The fact they didn't think Sonic was WESTERN ENOUGH! should tell you all you need to know about SEGA America's thought patterns.