NOTES: PC/PS2 notes that I mention are based on the statistics of the English version, NOT the Japanese version. The Xbox 360 servers are global, that means the US/EU play with the Japanese unlike the PC/PS2 version. However, the information I have on PC/PS2 is dated because I haven't played it in 3 months or so. Also, traditionally, only special events such as Maximum Attack G (MAG) and rare missions give out higher exp and drop rates.

This is one of the recent updates posted at Sega's official Japanese Phantasy Star Universe website

http://phantasystaruniverse.jp/news/update/

This is a graph showing the number of players on Phantasy Star Universe for the last year. The US PC/PS2 servers has about 300 active players during peak hours down from around 500-600 during its peak hours just a bit over a year ago.

In the last year, the population has dropped significantly even with the release of Phantasy Star Portable. One of the reasons behind this is Sega's constant screw ups within the last year. In December of 2007, a few hackers were allowed to run rampant on the PC/PS2 servers and even crashed many players. This continued for about 2 weeks before Sega employees came back from their vacation and did something about it. At around the same time on the 360 version, there was a bug that allowed players to mass produce grinders which are used to upgrade weapons. It wasn't before long that +10 grinders (greatly increases weapon upgrade success rates) flooded the market. These players were only temporarily banned for a few weeks and were allowed to return to the server and keep everything they obtained through the bug. That might be one of the reasons that the chart shows such a significant drop between December 07 and January 08.

Half a year ago in the Japanese PC/PS2 version, players failed to achieve the final unlock for the first time since the game was released while the other events all ended with players overshooting their target goal greatly.

http://phantasystaruniverse.jp/event/dark2008/

About 1 year ago, the US PC/PS2 and 360 servers were about 3 months behind the Japanese version. Today, they are about 7 months behind the Japanese version. This is not counting all the screw ups they have had involving billing, rollbacks, and other problems. New players on the PS2 were able to receive over a month of free play while subscribers had to pay their monthly fee during the length of the MAG event. Those who had their accounts on automatic renewal would not have their accounts renewed thereby ridding them of the ability to participate in the MAG leaderboard competition. Now here is where it got even worse. When MAG was announced to be extended, they cancelled it on the day it was going to end and postponed MAG for several months. When it started again, players who won on the leaderboard already were allowed to enter again thereby eliminating the chance for many more. In the 2 events, 1 player managed to win a total of 7 Spread Needles. In the 2 events, he had entered with all his characters. All rollbacks and problems are replied with the same solution. 3* luck for everyone for a fixed period of time. All 3* luck does is boost some drop rates. It doesn't fix anything else.

This is not counting all the class inbalances they have ignored since the game was released. Supposedly this new update will adjust it again. However, knowing Sega, this will not fix anything. The classes have always been ranked Hunter > Ranger > Force in Phantasy Star Universe. There is no reason that this will change. A Fortefighter/Fighmaster will always overpower a MasterGunner/ForteGunner and both of those will always overpower a MasterForce/Fortetecher/Arcotecher. The reason? The number of hits. Multi targetting melee weapons will always hit the maximum number of targets possible and melee skills often hit 4 times in 1 attack while a gun or magic skill will only hit once. Melee skills have the greatest area effect and damage. Everyone else is just support for the melee classes. Anga Jabroga, the strongest axe skill, will provide a 400% ATP multiplier on up to 6 targets and hits twice. This will kill some bosses in 3 hits because you're basically dealing 4800% ATP in 1 attack. Now if a Gunner uses their grenades, the same effect can be achieved. But for techers, this effect can never be achieved. A tech can only hit each target once per cast. The strongest spell is limited to 4 targets and it hits them once. Using the same skill against a large target will change nothing. Still 1 hit and damage once. Nothing even close to what melee skills can achieve. Most melee skills can be used fairly quickly as well requiring no cast time. Even with the new balancing not much will change. The last attempts to balance this changed nothing. Unless melee weapons are restricted or their damage is cut by 50%, they will still be the strongest.

Rather than trying to improve the overall quality and perhaps the unthinkable, convert their system from Pay to Play to Free to Play with cash shop which failing Pay to Play games tend to do, they are going to use a Pay to Play system with cash shop in an attempt to make as much money as possible with what is left of the players. There are always a few hardcore players who are willing to commit more to the game, but in many cases, there are not enough players willing to commit that much. Doing something like this late into the game's life will end up harming its player base more than it would help. Players who worked hard to obtain what they have will dislike the fact that someone else can spend $100 and a week and obtain what took them 10 months of playing to obtain for themselves. The rare missions with boosted exp and drop rates in Phantasy Star Universe are notoriously easily and predictable with insane rewards. The Pay to Play game market is a rough and unpredictable business. Each big hit will take away a significant portion of the population, but each free to play game will barely make a dent in the overall number of people playing MMOs. In fact, new free MMOs might add to the number of players playing free MMOs. Each of the PS2/PC and 360 servers contain a number of Universes within it that allow it to support over 10000 players but on the PC/PS2 it can barely reach 500 during peak hours and the 360 can reach 2000 players which isn't that bad during the peak hours. Probably less than that now though. Some of these items in the cash shop will include weapon grind insurance (guarantees success of weapon upgrades up to a certain point) and item mall only missions (stages with higher exp and drop rates).

The 360 version can be happy that they finally reached 100,000 accounts. Only took 3 years...