Is this the end of Phantasy Star?

Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution may well be the final game in the long running RPG series. But while Sega has "no plans" to develop another Phantasy Star game after Episode III, as Sonic Team director Yojiro Ogawa revealed this week, we shouldn't rule out the possibility of another title in the future.

Speaking in an interview with IGN, Ogawa was twice asked about the developer's future plans for PSO, first responding that there is "no specific plan for now," then later adding "we have no plans so far and I don't know about the future." Hopefully PSO fans can derive some small comfort from the sliver of hope tacked onto the end of that second response.

Ogawa also pointed out that it had been "easy" to create content for the Xbox - referring to PSO Episode I & II's release on the format last May - which some commentators have taken to mean an Xbox port of Episode III is very much a possibility. Upon closer inspection, however, that doesn't seem to be a fair characterisation of his comments.

On the topic of the series' platform hopping, Ogawa merely said it was "easy to create a title for GameCube, but Xbox also has the same level of hardware performance and has made it easy to create content for." He then added jokingly "Perhaps we should port Episode I & II to PS2 if we ever decide to do so. Not that we are planning that!" Hardly a product announcement.

Indeed, although the IGN interview is an excellent source of information on PSO Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution - which takes the traditional PSO formula and reshapes it somewhat into a card battle title - Ogawa was very coy talking about future plans. When asked what his team was doing post-PSO, he broke out in a smile and would only say "We are advancing on various projects now, but unfortunately I am in no position to talk about them, so please try and ask Naka-san, the president."

Sega Europe's latest release schedule has PSO Episode III appearing on GameCube during Q2 2004.