CyberConnect2 president Hiroshi Matsuyama stated at a company event this past Saturday that a “second wave” of .hack material will be coming to Guilty Dragon. This led people to question whether the .hack franchise will make a return to consoles. His response? It depends on how popular the .hack material in Guilty Dragon is.
Right now, it’s extremely difficult to continue an original series via console games. But that doesn’t mean we’re not doing any planning at all. The .hack series right now is Guilty Dragon, so, to put it bluntly, if Guilty Dragon‘s sales and profits reach a certain scale, and we’re told “.hack is pretty popular, time for you to make another,” then, “just in case something like that happens,” we’re planning so that we could continue to develop the series.
The last major .hack RPG that was made for consoles was the .hack//G.U. trilogy, which was released on the PS2 between 2006 and 2007. It’s worth pointing out that neither it nor the original .hack PS2 series were given the HD treatment for the PS3. Maybe instead of holding the franchise to ransom via a social game on mobile devices to test its popularity, it would be a better idea to port them to the PS3? Just a thought.
