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Atlus output strategy | Discussion thread

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Will776 said:
Is there a reason persona 5 isn't ported to pc or nintendo or any other platform yet? Was it exclusive after all?
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There's nothing official afaik, but I always assumed there was some kind of exclusivity deal with Sony.

personacentral.com

Sony Interactive Entertainment States Persona Series is Important to Them, 'Royal Experience' Developer Statements and Event Pictures - Persona Central

The Persona 5 Royal "Royal Experience" opening event featured key people from Sega, Atlus, and Sony discussing the importance of the Persona series.
personacentral.com personacentral.com
 
NediarPT88 said:
some kind of exclusivity deal with Sony
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That would be hard to pinpoint if Sony got rather aggressive with the contract making. They might, but that would be rather odd to push Atlus into something like that were they can't be public about an agreement made between them (plus Sega) and Sony.
 
duvjones said:
That would be hard to pinpoint if Sony got rather aggressive with the contract making. They might, but that would be rather odd to push Atlus into something like that were they can't be public about an agreement made between them (plus Sega) and Sony.
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Most deals in Japan aren't public, especially for middle tier publishers.
 
At this point even late ports to Switch are a print money button for Atlus. Vanillaware should definitely be pleased that 13 Sentinels had a great Switch debut.
 
NediarPT88 said:
There's nothing official afaik, but I always assumed there was some kind of exclusivity deal with Sony.

personacentral.com

Sony Interactive Entertainment States Persona Series is Important to Them, 'Royal Experience' Developer Statements and Event Pictures - Persona Central

The Persona 5 Royal "Royal Experience" opening event featured key people from Sega, Atlus, and Sony discussing the importance of the Persona series.
personacentral.com personacentral.com
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I've seen a lot of people use this article as evidence that that Sony had an exclusivity contract for Persona 5 because supposedly Sony stated Persona was important to them, but I've debunked this, Sony never actually stated that. This was an editorial line added by Persona Central that is not in the original Japanese article.



Japanese speakers here can check the link in my tweet.


Does this mean there was absolutely no exclusivity contract for Persona 5? No, just that this article is not positive evidence for that case.


So now I'd like to give my OPINION on the status of the mainline Persona games.
This is just my SPECULATION but based on sound reasoning.

Persona 1-4 I believe were de facto exclusives. I don't believe there should be much doubt about that.

What is a de facto exclusive? It means the platform holder did not make the publisher sign a contract for the games to be exclusive or pay for them to be exclusive. The publisher just decided to make the game for only one platform.

At the time the PS1 and PS2 had the largest audience for the type of RPGs that Atlus wanted to make. Their contemporaries the N64, GameCube, Sega Saturn, DreamCast and OGXbox had a much smaller market share. And the handhelds had separate games developed for them instead.
The PS2 in particular really was the only game in town at the time with an overwhelming market share in Japan.


Now let's fast forward to Persona 5, did Sony pay for an exclusivity contract for that game?

First let's ask what is an exclusivity contract for? Well the platform holder draws up a legally binding contract and pays the publisher to release the game on their platform alone (at least for a limited time).

OK, so P5 full development began in 2011 and was announced in 2013 for the PS3. I think a potential contract would have been drawn up between the start of development and the eventual announcement. So at that time in Japan (remember, this game was released in Japan first, so the first consideration was the Japanese market) what contemporary platforms would Sony have been paying to keep P5 off of?

Well the Wii was still around in 2011 but at the end of its life, followed by the Wii U, then there was the Xbox 360 followed by the Xbox One.
There also the handhelds; the 3DS, and Vita.

None of the those platforms were viable for the ambition that Atlus had for P5 in Japan in 2011-13. The Wii was almost dead at that point, the Wii U was a flop, the 360 had a very small market share, and the Xbox One was DOA.

And the handhelds were not strong enough for what Atlus wanted to achieve with P5. So I don't think there was any chance that Atlus would have even bothered to develop P5 for any of those platforms. Therefore why would Sony have paid to have delayed development on any of those platforms?

And then there is PC. PC gaming is growing but still small in Japan today, but in 2011 it was miniscule and not a consideration for Atlus.

To this day P5 and P5R have still not been released on PC.

IMO Sony would have had to have the foresight, somewhere between 2011 and 2013, to know that P5 was going to blow up once it hit the worldwide market. I personally find it hard to believe that Sony paid for exclusivity for an (at the time) Japan only game when Persona games prior to that had not sold much than 1 million.

Also consider this: what has stopped Atlus releasing Persona 4 Golden on PS4? The game was successful on Vita, what stopped them releasing it on the PS4 in 2014? 2015? 2016? Before the Switch even existed? What about now? They released the game on Steam where it has sold well over 1 million but still not on PS4? No, rather I think this is Atlus's own ineptitude.


I know there are some conspiracy theories that Sony have paid to perpetually keep the entire mainline Persona series off of other platforms but that doesn't make any business sense to me.

I think that a simpler answer is that there is more of a business understanding between Atlus and Sony but not one that is written up in a legally binding contract, and I don't think money changed hands for exclusivity. I think P5 was a de facto exclusive with a marketing deal.

There is plenty of evidence for a marketing deal, for example the PS4 slim was timed to release alongside P5 in Japan and there were advertising campaigns around that.

Does this mean that Sony would not pay for exclusivity for Persona 6? No of course that is possible but I honestly think there will probably be no need for them to because I think Atlus management is misguided enough to make it a de facto console exclusive without a monetary incentive.
 
P5R was in the Atlus survey asking about potential ports to other platforms alongside a bunch of other Atlus titles (SMT3HD, P4G, P5S, Catherine FB, Dragon's Crown Pro, Odin Sphere L, SMT4, SMT4A, etc, etc). Conspicuously absent though: SMT5.

I wouldn't doubt Sony had a window on P5 but my guess is that window's probably over now.
 
As always, I think that the main reason to think that Sony has some kind of exclusivity, agreement or anything is in fact covering Atlus incompetence.

The surveys are only salt in the wound, a company have to try his best to bury the head under the sand and not hear what the community have been demanding for years, with such insistence and perseverance that part of the comunnity is annoyed to still be hearing about that demand, and still refusing to do it. Not only they are going aganist the market reality, they are going aganist part of their audience.

I fully agree with @J-Cat post. Before SH2 announcement I was pretty convinced that P6 was going to be multi from the start, because that is the choice that makes sense to me. But after SH2 announcement I fully believe that P6 will be de facto PS exclusive because Atlus, or worst, multiplataform in everything but the Switch.
 
fiendcode said:
P5R was in the Atlus survey asking about potential ports to other platforms alongside a bunch of other Atlus titles (SMT3HD, P4G, P5S, Catherine FB, Dragon's Crown Pro, Odin Sphere L, SMT4, SMT4A, etc, etc). Conspicuously absent though: SMT5.

I wouldn't doubt Sony had a window on P5 but my guess is that window's probably over now.
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Basically anything I could answer to put on Switch, I answered I want it on Switch. Would definitely double dip on Odin Sphere L. P4G on Switch would be a Day 1 obvious buy.
 
I’m very bullish on Atlus. They’re starting to move beyond single platform releases, at the same time they’re going simultaneous world-wide. They just need to expand the number of platforms.

Making the decision to pursue multi-platform world-wide strategy is much more important, in the long term, than the unfortunate fact they didn’t hit all platforms right away. It bodes well for their future releases.
 
Person said:
I’m very bullish on Atlus. They’re starting to move beyond single platform releases, at the same time they’re going simultaneous world-wide. They just need to expand the number of platforms.

Making the decision to pursue multi-platform world-wide strategy is much more important, in the long term, than the unfortunate fact they didn’t hit all platforms right away. It bodes well for their future releases.
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Yeah, Sega seems to have acknowledged past mistakes in this regard and their managerial mindset changes (which happened almost immediately after Nagoshi was relieved of his upper management position, imagine that) will trickle down to Atlus, even if it's maybe not going to happen immediately.
 
I'm not much of the inclination that I would want a game that skips a preferred system to underperform, but I have no clue what Atlus expected with SH2, given its early preorder numbers.

I mean, with this game, they:
  • Skipped the biggest platform for JRPG sales (which, fair enough, they are looking to compensate for that by having their major first simultaneous multiplatform and worldwide release ever), but;
  • Skipped first party support for marketing which comes with exclusivity (and which was a help when it came to the marketing of Persona 5 and SMTV);
  • Which can still be okay as long as Atlus actually markets the game, but the marketing for this game has been bafflingly bad. It's the kind of late cycle marketing I imagine for a new entry in an established IP with an assured fanbase that has already secured its target preorders. No attempt is being made to actually court new audiences or sell the game to them, for what Atlus expects to be a tentpole brand standing next to Persona and SMT? I would even argue the Switch version of 13 Sentinels had a bigger push (at least in the west), and it's not like that actually had much of a big push either, which means this just reflects poorly on Atlus' marketing efforts for this game so far;
  • Okay, but in spite of all that, from Atlus' perspective, you can kind of see the sense in keeping marketing costs low and letting word of mouth carry a game to success - that's exactly the sort of thing that buoyed Persona 5 or the aforementioned 13 Sentinels, for example. But that's the thing, those games ended up reviewing freakishly well, are considered among the stalwart top standard bearers of their respective genres, and had in-built fanbases willing to passionately bat for them (Persona and VanillaWare respectively), that last factor does not apply to SH2, and while SH2 is my most anticipated game of the year, I am also not delusional enough to expect it to be P5 or 13S level, meaning I see no reason for it to generate the kind of word of mouth those games did either.
I legitimately don't know what Atlus actually expects here. Other than the global/multiplatform release, I think they have done everything they could possibly have done wrong with this game (and even the multiplat release point comes with caveats, given they have decided to skip the biggest system for mid tier JRPG sales, the ecosystem with the biggest audience for non Persona MegaTen, the system which just gave Atlus a bunch of huge hits, while hitting everything else)
 
Soul Hackers is going to live or die based on the West. In the West, it seems to have even less marketing than SMT V, which isn't a great sign.
 
I'm seeing folks say that a lot can change in 3 months; and while that's true, I still need some reason to believe that change is gonna come. cause I don't see it yet
 
ILikeFeet said:
I'm seeing folks say that a lot can change in 3 months; and while that's true, I still need some reason to believe that change is gonna come. cause I don't see it yet
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I think the assumption is a big marketing push come E3

Which is a bold assumption because Atlus has never once given a rat’s ass for showing stuff at E3 lol. SMTV being there was down to Nintendo, not Atlus, and that’s the only exception to an otherwise very long and well established trend.
 
Phantom Thief said:
I'm not much of the inclination that I would want a game that skips a preferred system to underperform, but I have no clue what Atlus expected with SH2, given its early preorder numbers.

I mean, with this game, they:
  • Skipped the biggest platform for JRPG sales (which, fair enough, they are looking to compensate for that by having their major first simultaneous multiplatform and worldwide release ever), but;
  • Skipped first party support for marketing which comes with exclusivity (and which was a help when it came to the marketing of Persona 5 and SMTV);
  • Which can still be okay as long as Atlus actually markets the game, but the marketing for this game has been bafflingly bad. It's the kind of late cycle marketing I imagine for a new entry in an established IP with an assured fanbase that has already secured its target preorders. No attempt is being made to actually court new audiences or sell the game to them, for what Atlus expects to be a tentpole brand standing next to Persona and SMT? I would even argue the Switch version of 13 Sentinels had a bigger push (at least in the west), and it's not like that actually had much of a big push either, which means this just reflects poorly on Atlus' marketing efforts for this game so far;
  • Okay, but in spite of all that, from Atlus' perspective, you can kind of see the sense in keeping marketing costs low and letting word of mouth carry a game to success - that's exactly the sort of thing that buoyed Persona 5 or the aforementioned 13 Sentinels, for example. But that's the thing, those games ended up reviewing freakishly well, are considered among the stalwart top standard bearers of their respective genres, and had in-built fanbases willing to passionately bat for them (Persona and VanillaWare respectively), that last factor does not apply to SH2, and while SH2 is my most anticipated game of the year, I am also not delusional enough to expect it to be P5 or 13S level, meaning I see no reason for it to generate the kind of word of mouth those games did either.
I legitimately don't know what Atlus actually expects here. Other than the global/multiplatform release, I think they have done everything they could possibly have done wrong with this game (and even the multiplat release point comes with caveats, given they have decided to skip the biggest system for mid tier JRPG sales, the ecosystem with the biggest audience for non Persona MegaTen, the system which just gave Atlus a bunch of huge hits, while hitting everything else)
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Seems premature. Global performance is what Atlus is looking for here and I don't think their expectations are too big either. SMTV sold somewhere around 1M for an established franchise. I would think that's the upper area for a less known series like Soul Hackers.
 
Playstation Japan is featuring Soul Hackers 2 on their last TVCM, meanwhile Xbox is yet to recognize the game anywhere outside of a News of the Week video (as far as I know). It's not impossible, but I would not bet on them featuring the game on their presentation.
 
Person said:
I’m still expecting this to make a big splash in two weeks at Microsoft’s event.
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It'll be a kind of splash alright.
394732.jpg
 
There is a chance it's shown on the SoP, but this is a smaller event I don't expect it to have any big influence if it does show up especially if FFXVI information comes out and overshadows it
 
I agree we'll get a better idea after not-E3. If things haven't fundamentally changed by the end of June though, get ready for TMS2 sales.
 
ktpoison said:
Playstation Japan is featuring Soul Hackers 2 on their last TVCM, meanwhile Xbox is yet to recognize the game anywhere outside of a News of the Week video (as far as I know). It's not impossible, but I would not bet on them featuring the game on their presentation.
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Yeah, there’s plenty of cross-watching in the between the big events, and Microsoft’s is gonna be one of the biggest gaming shows is the year especially since 100% of what they show is coming to PC and no one else is doing an event that big. And if we get the GP announcement I’m expecting, the genre questions are irrelevant.
 
Phantom Thief said:


Not sure this means anything, but sure
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SFV also isn't there and I haven't seen a Xbox/Switch version of that game neither it's possible for Capcom to create one. While I think Persona 5 will come to other platforms soonish (0-2 years) this doesn't mean anything
brutaka3 said:
There must be something wrong there, I refuse to believe PS only have 40 console exclusives.
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It doesn't have all console exclusives or even close to. This is a somewhat accurate list to show it: https://www.gematsu.com/exclusives/ps4 (it's outdate but still shows my point)
 
Blue Monty said:
Atlus West hasn't posted anything about it yet, this has to be a joke lol
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I've been told that we're overreacting regarding the marketing and SH2 will be fine. just like Persona 5

honestly, I'm not sure late-stage marketing really works for games like this. but I've been proven wrong before
 
ILikeFeet said:
I've been told that we're overreacting regarding the marketing and SH2 will be fine. just like Persona 5

honestly, I'm not sure late-stage marketing really works for games like this. but I've been proven wrong before
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I have already say it before but for SMT V they did the same , almost all Atlus marketing was JP only until really close to release date. But in that case it had Nintendo news sites (which are more popular than just Atlus/JRPG ones) covering the JP news but most importantly also Nintendo pushing the game on the West, it seems like they are following the same formula but without a Nintendo figure to push the game in the West, which Atlus West or SEGA should easily be able to do but they aren’t at least right now. (And if SEGA/Atlus dont do it at least they should have taken a marketing deal with Xbox/Sony in the West)

I think there is no overeaction from most people when it comes to SH2 marketing , most of us understand things can change and that Atlus still has more than 80 days to market the game well on the West but currently is a disaster, there is an event in 3 days and Atlus West/SEGA haven’t posted about it yet.

I also don’t understand comparing SH2 marketing with P5 one because it makes no sense to do so. P5 wasn’t a WW release day 1 and it also sold well in the West because 90+MC plus amazing WoW, that’s not something that SH2 should take for granted or even expect.
 
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I was totally wrong about a GP day-1 announcement for SH2. Game has to get its audience on its own merit.

Pretty funny to still see Atlus still show up at the showcase for different games, though.
 
Someday i may understand Persona's platform strategies, but it is not this day.

P3-Exclusive to PS2, ported to PSP and later ported to Xbox/PC but not PS4 or Switch
P4-Exclusive to PS2, ported to Vita and later ported to PC, then Xbox. Not PS4 or Switch
P5-Exclusive to PS3/PS4, remade for PS4, ported to Xbox/PC but not Switch
P5Strikers- PS4, Switch, PC, no Xbox
 
ArkhamFantasy said:
Someday i may understand Persona's platform strategies, but it is not this day.

P3-Exclusive to PS2, ported to PSP and later ported to Xbox/PC but not PS4 or Switch
P4-Exclusive to PS2, ported to Vita and later ported to PC, then Xbox. Not PS4 or Switch
P5-Exclusive to PS3/PS4, remade for PS4, ported to Xbox/PC but not Switch
P5Strikers- PS4, Switch, PC, no Xbox
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P5Strikers is due to KT more than Atlus really, they are inconsistent when it comes to Xbox support
 
I really wish I could understand what Atlus is thinking. Is it "we need to go all in on the West and the Twins"? Or are they trying to get all the marketing support they can get from the platform companies?
 
Abzeronow said:
I really wish I could understand what Atlus is thinking. Is it "we need to go all in on the West and the Twins"? Or are they trying to get all the marketing support they can get from the platform companies?
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If you go West with your JRPGs either you release them on Switch (like NISA does with Falcom games or their own) or you make games with at least AA level graphics (and usually action based) like Namco does to sell them to the general Western audience for the Twins. Atlus isn’t going ‘West’ with the platform decisions by themselves when their decisions don’t follow what sells on the West the best.
 
Abzeronow said:
I really wish I could understand what Atlus is thinking. Is it "we need to go all in on the West and the Twins"? Or are they trying to get all the marketing support they can get from the platform companies?
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I blame Switch owners. Atlus keeps releasing that survey: "Which Atlus Games Do You Not Want on the Switch?" For some reason you all keep writing Persona. In Conclusion, Atlus 100% innocent.
 
Thiefcoal said:
I blame Switch owners. Atlus keeps releasing that survey: "Which Atlus Games Do You Not Want on the Switch?" For some reason you all keep writing Persona. In Conclusion, Atlus 100% innocent.
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I unironically do this and am very happy that Atlus is listening to me and me alone. Now if they can just bring SMT IV and Deep Strange Journey to Switch.
 
ArkhamFantasy said:
Someday i may understand Persona's platform strategies, but it is not this day.

P3-Exclusive to PS2, ported to PSP and later ported to Xbox/PC but not PS4 or Switch
P4-Exclusive to PS2, ported to Vita and later ported to PC, then Xbox. Not PS4 or Switch
P5-Exclusive to PS3/PS4, remade for PS4, ported to Xbox/PC but not Switch
P5Strikers- PS4, Switch, PC, no Xbox
Click to expand...

The Xbox ones are very easy to understand: Microsoft came to us with a bag of money.
 
mousielilone said:
KT is a lot more consistent with their Xbox support than Atlus. Knowing P4G was going to Xbox and they still didn’t port P4AU which was on the 360. Like o_O??
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KT is inconsistent when it comes to licensed games I should add, all their main games (outside of Gust) come to Xbox nowadays. But my point was more that P5S platform choices probably had more to do with KT than Atlus
 
ArkhamFantasy said:
Someday i may understand Persona's platform strategies, but it is not this day.

P3-Exclusive to PS2, ported to PSP and later ported to Xbox/PC but not PS4 or Switch
P4-Exclusive to PS2, ported to Vita and later ported to PC, then Xbox. Not PS4 or Switch
P5-Exclusive to PS3/PS4, remade for PS4, ported to Xbox/PC but not Switch
P5Strikers- PS4, Switch, PC, no Xbox
Click to expand...

Are we sure its not multi-platform? If not, then its a Gamepass deal that MS paid a lot for.
 
Blue Monty said:
KT is inconsistent when it comes to licensed games I should add, all their main games (outside of Gust) come to Xbox nowadays. But my point was more that P5S platform choices probably had more to do with KT than Atlus
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Possibly. But Strikers being in Switch/PC was treated as a big deal when it was announced. I feel like at that time no one saw a point in an Xbox version.

Which is understandable.
 
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