[11/19/07] PSOBB Shutdown Notice and Schedule

[Clumsyorchid]

Important Announcement to all Phantasy Star Blue Burst customers:

We regret to announce that sales of new Hunters’ Licenses will be terminated on December 6th 2007. All subscription-based services for Phantasy Star Blue Burst will be terminating on Jan 9th, 2008.

If you have an active subscription terminating between December 9th 2007 and January 9th 2008, your Hunters’ License will be valid until January 9th. The game servers will be made available to all registered users from January 9th 2008 until March 31st 2008.

[Clumsyorchid]

On a personal level, I am very saddened by this news and wish we could have come to a different resolution. PSOBB is truly a great game and it will be missed by me and everyone working along side it.

To give players some insight into the goings on of PSOBB, I've drafted up a brief explanation that covers the why concerns for the game closure. The reason for closing ultimately falls on two core reasons:

1. PSOBB is not making any money, in fact Phantasy Star Universe is the only reason it has been going as long as it has. Even with the lack of updates (no development, localization, or management costs), the server and bandwidth costs exceed the amount of money generated by paying subscribers.

2. Persistent billing issues and server timeouts (error 906, etc) cannot be resolved by our billing server team. We've been working on them for months and they simply cannot be resolved, I would go into more detail, but the end result will always be the same.

As a company offering a subscription-based service, we cannot charge people for a broken service, and we can't offer a free service without offsetting the cost. The sad result is a closure of the game.

I worked hands on with this process from beginning to end, and was very vocal about getting a resolution in that would benefit players as a whole. Unfortunately, I could not sway people past the numbers and, in fairness, they had a very tough decision to make.

[Sodaboy]

It's all good, man. You tried.

I'm really surprised Blue Burst stayed up for as long as it did, really.

I'm even more surprised that at least one of the team, yourself, made a topic about the closing and offered his own personal insight on it.

When they closed the Dreamcast and Gamecube servers, I don't think we got any announcement on this side. We had to read about the shutdown, most of us through Babelfish or something, on the Japanese website.

Hopefully, some of you still have a copy of PSO for the Dreamcast or Gamecube and can break it out now and then for a little offline nostalgia. (Although nothing can really replace it's online mode...)

R.I.P. Phantasy Star Online US
(January 29, 2001 - March 31, 200

A good run, I think.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Will these forums shut down too?

[Sodaboy]

Will these forums shut down too?

I'd imagine so... but maybe Clumsy can answer this along with a question I have for him too.

This line "The game servers will be made available to all registered users from January 9th 2008 until March 31st 2008.", I'm going to acknowledge that it means "ZOMG FREE BLUE BURST TO EVERYBODY WHO HAS A PLAYSEGA.COM ACCOUNT FROM JAN 9TH 2008 UNTIL MARCH 31ST 2008", right?

Also, not trying to troll, but I hope we don't get any sort of billing problem with PSU later. :\ Making a system, having it fail, troubleshooting it unsuccessfully and then giving up on it doesn't really look good. Even if you had to give up, as long as PSU was making money, I'd imagine you'd create a brand new billing system to keep the cash rolling in, right?

[Clumsyorchid]

* PSU and PSOBB use two separate authentication systems, so it's not likely to present itself on PSU.

* We'll keep the forums up, no plans to take them offline at the moment.

* Free PSOBB is indeed what it says, but you must have a Playsega.com account and have had an active subscription at one time in the product's lifetime. Also, there will be increased XP and Drop Rates during this time.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

* PSU and PSOBB use two separate authentication systems, so it's not likely to present itself on PSU.

* We'll keep the forums up, no plans to take them offline at the moment.

* Free PSOBB is indeed what it says, but you must have a Playsega.com account and have had an active subscription at one time in the product's lifetime. Also, there will be increased XP and Drop Rates during this time.

Does that include people who played during the beta but did not pay to play after?

[Clumsyorchid]

Does that include people who played during the beta but did not pay to play after?

Possibly, but I'm not really sure. I suspect it would be a bonus for those people, but this is really in place for people who've continue to play and enjoy the game; the hardcore followers.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Does that include people who played during the beta but did not pay to play after?

Possibly, but I'm not really sure. I suspect it would be a bonus for those people, but this is really in place for people who've continue to play and enjoy the game; the hardcore followers.

I was just curious, it would be nice to see Cronus full and Rhea half full and Hyperion 2 full again.

[Clumsyorchid]

I think that would be extreme, while the free period will probably rope in a lot of old players, I don't suspect players from the BETA would return for a month or two. The beta was over 2 years ago, I'd be surprised if BETA players still remembered their login information.