100,000 sign up for Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst beta

TOKYO--Sega today announced that its MMORPG Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst has reached 100,000 registered members in the first three weeks of its open beta testing. Anticipation from previous PSO players prompted some 50,000 gamers to register in the first week alone, forcing Sega to add three new servers to the beta (for a total of 12).

Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst is an online-only edition of PSO Episode I & II for the PC. Aside from upgraded graphics and a number of other tweaks, the biggest difference PSOBB exhibits from earlier releases of PSO Episode I & II is that the user's saved data is now stored on the server side, which means that the game and its services will be less prone to cheats.

Beta testing for Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst is scheduled to continue until early July. Until then, gamers can download the beta test PC client through PSOBB's official site. Some knowledge of Japanese is required to navigate the site and to register for the game.