Trivia / Phantasy Star Online

• Black Sheep Hit: PSO, according to producer Takao Miyoshi, was originally only meant to run for two to three months, but its success in Japan (and somewhat in the rest of the world) led to its continuation for years after.
• Dummied Out: The Red Ring and the Parasitic Cell D were meant to drop off the final bosses of Episodes I and II respectively. Unfortunately for players, Sega set the item drop rate for both bosses to zero, meaning they would never drop anything (including rare items). As such, it is impossible to obtain either item without a cheat device or homebrew quests.
• No Export for You: While the game itself received an international release, the game is particularly notable for receiving an unusual tie-in product: the Sammy Keyboard Controller, a peripheral for the Nintendo GameCube produced by ASCII Corporation and released exclusively in Japan. It's essentially an otherwise normal GameCube controller with a QWERTY keyboard spliced in the middle that uses a second controller port to type in-game, allowing players to communicate online without having to use the game's clunky in-game keyboard. It has since become famous online as a rare novelty product.
• Screwed By The Company: Overlaps with Bad Export for You, but that trope doesn't go far enough. Ever since Sonic Team's policy change that called for a segregation of American and European players from the Japanese player base, Sega of Japan has often done little to ensure the success of localized versions of Phantasy Star MMOs. Sega of America's GMs were given little to no authority or management over the localized servers, and Sega of Japan did little to nothing to stop or fix problems occurring on them. As a result, PSO lived on in Japan, but nowhere else.
• Word of God: Phantasy Star series creator Reiko Kodama has gone on record stating that she does not consider Online (or any of the games after it) to be sequels to the original Phantasy Star series.