Through the Mill, potentially a series of features recalling tales of misery, incompetence and failure in the video games industry. Because nothing is as simple as it should be and all good things come to a drawn-out painful end as reality catches up with the ambitions of a marginalised medium at the mercy of a society living in fear of the uncontrollable gangs of gun-totting immigrants that control every aspect of our lives.
~
You cannot argue with marketing like that.
I love it when a plan comes together...
Boomas - Manbearpigs
Phantasy Star Online for Dreamcast
Released in November 2000 in Japan and was available in the US and Europe within 3 months.
Phantasy Star Online Version 2 for Dreamcast
Fixed bugs, exploits and added Broadband Adapter support.
Released in July 2001 in Japan, September in the US, but not until March 2002 in Europe.
US servers shut down in 2003, Japanese and European servers shut down in March 2007.
Phantasy Star Online for Windows
A PC version of Version 2, released only in Asia in December 2001. A demo, however, was featured on a PC Gamer (UK) cover disc.
Servers shut down in 2004 with the release of Blue Burst.
The sun always shines on Ragol, even at 2am.
Phantasy Star Online: Episode 1&2 for Gamecube
Significantly expanded the content of the game, including new classes, and improved the graphics slightly.
Released in September 2002 in Japan, October in the US and March 2003 in Europe.
The original Japanese release was recalled due to a serious item duplication bug.
Servers shut down in March 2007.
Phantasy Star Online: Episode 1&2 for Xbox
Featured voice communication as required for Xbox Live.
Released in March 2003 in Japan, April in the US and May in Europe.
US server updates stopped without warning in 2006, leaving the lobbies eternally in Christmas mode.
Servers shut down in January 2008.
Phantasy Star Online: Episode 1&2 Plus for Gamecube
Fixed an exploit which allowed the Gamecube broadband adapter to treat a PC as a server, and included previously online download-only quests in the offline mode as an incentive.
Released in November 2003 in the US, September 2004 in the US, but never in Europe.
Servers shut down in March 2007.
What he meant to say was %#&!
Phantasy Star Online: Episode 3 for Gamecube
Released in November 2003 in Japan, March 2004 in the US and June 2004 in Europe.
This strategy card game was more of a spin-off.
Servers shut down in March 2007.
Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst for Windows
A port of the Xbox game for PC with slightly inferior graphics. Released as a free to download client, with harsh steps taken to reduce the file size.
Released in July 2004 in Japan and June 2005 in the US and Europe.
Servers shut down in March 2008. Subscriptions ended in December and existing members can play for free until shutdown.
Let's get physical.
Phantasy Star Online: Episode 4 for Windows
Additional lobbies, maps, quests and items.
Released as an expansion in Japan in early 2005, but included in the western versions of Blue Burst which appeared later that year.
What a mess. Ultimately the Dreamcast, Gamecube and then Blue Burst versions were the most successful, with hundreds returning to say goodbye on their respective server shutdowns. And although all the official servers are now offline or going offline, PSO survives in the form of the SCHTHACK server project, among others, which now supports all versions of PSO, except for the Xbox version. It's not perfect, but its existence is reassuring as the chances of Sega revisiting the game themselves are very low indeed.
posted by Raff 
