Interview Addresses PSO2 Western Release Future

A video interview published Thursday by Giant Bomb between Jeff Gerstmann and Microsoft EVP Phil Spencer that you can watch below implies that the upcoming North American release of Sega’s Phantasy Star Online 2 to XBOX One and PC will not be the only avenues to players’ hands in the West.

Gerstmann asked Spencer if players will be able to import characters from the Japanese version. Stating he didn’t know, the conversation quickly turned to the controversy surrounding PSO2’s uncertain status in Europe. Sega walked back on the idea of it coming there in Tweets shortly following the PSO2 announcement Sunday, only saying there wasn’t news on its release status there for now.

Spencer explained:

And I know in the announce it said North America, my friends outside of North America say, hey…my friend Ironwolf said, hey, is this going to be available in London…like, eh, I don’t know…like, I’m just glad we can finally get it out here [….] It was so cool, to have them (Sega) on our stage, and to be able to work with them, and yes, like, it’ll end up on all platforms. That’s not the point. To me the point was to be able to have Sega back on our stage. It’s been a while.

While Spencer’s words cannot necessarily put European gamers’ concerns at ease, they do imply that other ways to play PSO2 may be on the way. Spencer remarked shortly after the above passage that he met with the Sega team during E3, and regarding PSO2’s launch, “they have a good plan.”

Astute Sega fans have noted that Yakuza 0 had a similar unknown status for Europe when its localization was announced, only for it to be confirmed for the region a few weeks after North America.

You can watch the response below.