Quote Originally Posted by fireheart
I'm not so sure that all the data surrounding SAO would just disappear like that, even if the people on the outside wasn't able to do anything to influence the game it's not impossible that they at least made backups of the data or analyzed it.
They could try.. but it doesn't sound like it lead to any beneficial results.

Quote Originally Posted by fireheart
Another thing would be the knowledge of Kirito, granted it's just Suguo that's mentioned it but even so if some people know about him and that he ended the game it's not too much of a stretch that there's some kind of record of every character.

The fact that people know about Kirito doesn't mean anything about remnant character profiles. Kirito gave up all the information he knew about SAO. It's a given that all those interested would know about the "Beater" Kirito.

I think the new MMO would be built on SAO as well, but I don't think that means SAO's data is available to anyone other than Akihito. There the question of whether this new MMO will be an underground project by Akihito-in-hiding, or something by the current server owners. I would guess it's the former.