Some of you guys may have caught the rumor from TSSZ News that Phantasy Star Online 2 was unlikely to come west, citing an unnamed source. Curious, we at SEGAbits decided to try and get an answer straight from the source, so we e-mailed Kellie Parker over at SEGA and this was what she had to say:
Originally slated for an early 2013 launch, SEGA can officially confirm that PS02 has been delayed. We don’t have any specifics but will update everyone as soon as there are more details to share.
There’s nothing vague about this statement: PSO2 is still coming, but a date has not been decided. This is more or less just reiterating what SEGA already said months ago. For those who’ve been worried by reports from SEGA-Addicts and TSSZ indicating otherwise, this should put their minds at ease.
This wouldn’t be the first time SEGA went hush-hush on a delayed project. Both Rhythm Thief and Anarchy Reigns received the silent treatment in 2012 shortly after SEGA’s restructuring, leading many to believe the localization of both projects had been canceled, despite confirmation from employees within SEGA that both games were still coming. SEGA has also demonstrated that they have no issue simply telling fans a game isn’t coming, as they demonstrated earlier today when they confirmed NOVA wasn’t coming west.
Ad:
“We have nothing to say”
I just don’t know
shady things are going on
A new career opportunity ad from Sega and Relic Entertainment has some interesting information about the fact that the development studio acquired after the demise of THQ is working on the localization of a MMORPG developed in Japan.
Here’s the text of the ad (that was discovered by NeoGaf user Nirolak) with the relevant text bolded.
__________________________________
Server Engineer
Programming/Engineering | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | 12/23/2013
Relic Entertainment, a wholly owned studio of SEGA, is the award winning RTS developer of Homeworld, Dawn of War and Company of Heroes, among other games. Relic was founded on the premise that it is entirely possible to ship first class, genre altering, AAA titles, and have a life. Relic is based out of beautiful Vancouver, Canada, a city that has breath-taking mountain and ocean views, along with snowboarding and skiing, golfing year-round and amazing hiking trails. If you love games, enjoy working collaboratively with smart, creative people, and have diverse personal interests outside of work – you’ll enjoy our culture.
What you will be doing
Ramp up and perform due diligence on an existing live MMO project in development in Japan, embedded with the live team
Gain full understanding of the game and code architecture, content authoring pipelines, build and deployment process, engineering process, and current code status
Establish working relationships with key members of Japanese development team
Participate in and contribute to minor/peripheral engineering tasks on the project, as well as in daily project planning, code reviews, release process, etc.
Create/translate documentation of existing code modules, tools, processes and work flows
Prepare regular status and activity reports to Producer
Prepare a full written project evaluation
What you should have
5+ years’ engineering experience from PC client/server based MMO development
Ability to spend extended (3+ months) periods of time on-site in Tokyo
Ideally fluent in Japanese and English languages
Excellent verbal and written communication skills
__________________________________
The only Japanese MMORPG currently live in Sega’s portfolio is Phantasy Star Online 2. Is the game finally getting a western localization?
Unfortunately no official announcement has been made yet, but it would be long overdue. We have contacted Sega to see if they have any relevant information to give. We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything straight from the lion’s mouth.
Shady how? I don’t see how not having a release date can be considered “shady”.
Kellie Parker is secretly Slim Shady confirmed.
I wish they had come out with a date or something, but I’m glad there’s no news to the contrary. Does the “2” on there bug anyone else? I’ve felt since the first announcement that it looks like it’s scotch-taped on there. That’s a small thing, but it sticks out a little, and I’ve never mentioned it until now.
International PSO2 is the new Duke Nukem Forever…
Couldn’t SEGA hire the fan translators that already had some (most?) of the text ready, then use that?
XSeed did that and they cut to the chase with localization/publishing. No delays.
I Just don’t Believe them They are leaving us in the Dark, Their last Facebook post was like sep 2nd 2012 so that’s like, 1 year and 4 months,
Even the Main site has not really Been updated so i say they are Ignoring Us and they Don’t Care Kinda Like Nexon.