Atlus Is Revealing Seven Projects To Mark Persona's 25th Anniversary

Persona 5 Royal has to come to Xbox and hopefully it gets added to Game Pass so that a lot of people can experience this wonderful series.

Personally, I just want a remaster/remake (either one is fine) of Persona 3 on Switch. My first Persona was Persona 4 Golden on Vita and the fact that I played the game on a handheld device made the experience so much more memorable. Which is why I'm hoping for the game to come to the Switch just so I can have the same kind of experience.

Another thing is that they showed off Persona 1 and 2 characters in a picture and that leads me to believe that some kind of revival will be made for those games. Most likely remakes just so they can integrate the social sim aspect into those games since the series didn't have that until Persona 3.

What are these games? Is it an interactive anime?

@Krzzystuff JRPGs. They mix dungeon-crawling and turn-based combat with life simulation elements, as your character will work jobs, build relationships with people, attend school, etc. throughout the year that these games typically span. The social elements feed back into the dungeon crawling, as the more you strengthen your bonds with the characters around you, the more perks you'll unlock for battles and exploration.

Setting-wise, the games are set in modern day Japan, but with a thick urban fantasy element introduced. In Persona 5, you're able to enter the Metaverse, a "cognitive world" where the dungeons you explore are reflective of the delusions and obsessions of the villains your characters fight against.

Mix all of that with detailed, super-long narratives and catchy Japanese pop/rock/acid jazz music and you get one of the most popular JRPG series not called Pokemon or Final Fantasy.

@LtSarge If you have a Vita, keep in mind you can still download and play Persona 3 Portable.

Even having a wonderful relationship with Nintendo, Atlus seems to have no interest in putting their mainline Persona games on other ecosystems, so I wouldn't count on an Xbox or even Switch release of any of these games. Atlus is hardcore about exclusivity. With that said, I could very well see the series possibly coming to PC down the road, as Sony doesn't seem to see it as competition, and P4G sold pretty well.

@Ralizah That does seem to be the case, yes. But ever since we got wind of Atlus doing a survey for Persona games, asking e.g. if people want to see Persona 3 being remastered, I've been holding off on playing it just in case they do release a remaster. Otherwise I own both Persona 3: FES on PS3 and Persona 3 Portable on Vita. And now that we know they have a lot of projects to announce, I'm definitely holding off on playing it for now. If it doesn't come to Switch then I'll just play P3P.

I will keep my expectation as low as i can

@Ralizah A PC-exclusive port for mainline Persona games is the least we all would like, in all honesty. Of course, Xbox would be the most ideal, though just PC would be tolerable consolation.

If now was pre-2013 when Atlus was run by now defunct Index Factory, there'd be zilch of mainline Persona games on Xbox, just from a budgeting and revenues standpoint as well as # of employees Atlus operated more along the lines of a smaller developer and therefore didn't have much room for error to work with in terms of profitability and having risk to port their games to less recognizable platforms, especially in Japan.

Today though, Sega now runs the company, and they're one of the big names among gaming companies worldwide. And with it comes greater revenues and profits from games like the Yakuza series and Sonic the Hedgehog and with it bigger budgets to put towards new games, IPs, and platform ecosystem ports. They don't have much if anything to lose by porting Atlus games on platforms besides Nintendo and PlayStation, even while Xbox Series console sales in Japan look miniscule compared to the PS5 despite increasing weekly sales to the tune of 3 to 4 thousand units over the last month. At the same time they've allowed Atlus some degree to operate autonomously with regards to what platforms they want their games to be on, although Sega publicly stated they'd like Atlus' works to go multiplatform on the basis of the success of P4G's PC port.

I'd love to see Persona come to the Xbox platform, but while there's plenty of reasons it should, there are a good number of reasons that demonstrate otherwise, mainly the aforementioned lack of success for Xbox in the Japanese market concerning console sales, and that market is always #1 in Atlus' minds with regards to catering priorities for new games.

@endlessleep Ideal for the pessimists in this crowd like you and me.

@LtSarge Makes sense. I'm sorta on the same boat insofar as I think, if we're getting a P3 remaster at all, we'll be getting it soon. If one of these announcements isn't P3 HD, I'll just play FES on my PS2.

As for the surveys, I'm of the opinion it's PURELY about information gathering rather than hinting about upcoming releases (as it seems to be with Nintendo, as a Ninty survey asked questions about whether people would pay $50 for a new Warioware game a few months before the new Switch Warioware game was unveiled at E3).

@MattDaSmitdog I think it's less about the non-existent market for Xbox games in Japan (as PC ports of Japanese games are primarily for the benefit of Western gamers) and more about wanting to preserve their comfy working relationship with Sony. After all, if Japanese sales were the main consideration, they would have expanded out to Switch with that series by now.

Keeping mainline MegaTen series exclusive to Sony and Nintendo consoles, respectively, allows them to remain valuable third-party partners to them. Sony seems to help with pushing Persona to some degree in Japan and elsewhere, and Nintendo absolutely bends over backwards to push SMT. They're not going to want to risk annoying the higher ups at these companies for moderately improved sales.

PC ports make a lot of sense, though. SEGA wants Atlus to expand to more platforms, Sony is putting some of its own games on PC, and, just recently, PC has seen simultaneous launches of stuff like Nocturne HD and Persona 5 Strikers, in addition to having an exclusive HD port of P4G.

IMO, if Atlus ever does plan on branching out to Xbox, they'll do like they did with the 360 and test the waters with GamePass versions of Catherine and whatever the current Persona spinoff game is (P5 hasn't had an Arena game yet, so that would make sense as one of the announcements).

@Ralizah As far as maintaining working relationships with Sony and Nintendo are concerned, it'd be perfectly understood for Atlus why they needed these connections with first-parties in the days before Sega's purchase on account of being one of the smaller yet noteworthy dev studios where they make an amazing game, but without a good marketing strategy their fortunes could sink easily from existence. And Sega likes their connections with Sony and Nintendo as well, even as they've been wowed with the success of their games on Xbox and Game Pass, which serves to reason why they let Atlus operate with a degree of autonomy as far as keeping their relationships with Sony and Nintendo go.

I do like your idea for Atlus testing the waters with Game Pass with lesser known titles from their library. Dragon's Crown Pro and 13 Sentinels are good suggestions, being both highly regarded JRPGs. And fighter spinoffs would help Xbox in another genre they've gotten notoriety for lacking in recent times. Hopefully with player bases and game sales numbers high enough, that should convince Atlus that porting its flagship JRPG to Xbox would be a feasible venture.

Of course I would LIKE to see Persona 4 and 5 on Xbox, but honestly I don't think it is going to happen. Not even the Switch got either of those games, I feel like Sony is writing some biiiiig checks. I would love to be wrong, though.

Eh? This seems unlikely here

@Ralizah eww Catherine ._.

I do agree with everything you said. Whilst I don’t expect anything at all. I think most of the projects are going to be mobile expansions or a possible Royal treatment to strikers. Leading up to the P6 announcement next fall. That said if P5 Arena is a thing, an Xbox port isn’t out of the realm

I mean if we stop licensing dolls and push these games with that doll money maybe we could get more of these games....

@mousieone we don't get fighters.

I've already played Persona 5 Royal on my PS5 but I'd love it to come to more platforms.
Just look at the success the Yakuza series has had after being included in Game Pass on console and PC.
SEGA have already stated they want Atlus games to be multi-format and launch day and date worldwide going forward, so there is hope.
I'm sure Game Pass money will help increase the chances so they won't have to rely on purely game sales. Will also help them out big time for their marketing of the Xbox in Japan.

@blinx01 I honestly believe Game Pass money is the number one reason why certain Japanese companies are putting out so many games on Xbox. If we take SEGA and Yakuza as an example, they literally added the entire series on Game Pass in just over a year. That's absolutely crazy to think about. Then look at Square Enix, Octopath Traveler came out on Xbox thanks to Game Pass and the game still hasn't come out on PlayStation, the platform where you usually find JRPGs!

If there's one advantage Microsoft has over Sony, it's that they will pay for each game that companies bring over to Game Pass and thus the Xbox platform. That's why I believe it's more likely now for Persona games to be coming to Xbox than PlayStation, which in turn is strengthened by the fact that SEGA has been going all out with bringing over their IPs like Yakuza to Game Pass. Microsoft will happily accept more Japanese games on the service and SEGA is happy to provide them.

@LtSarge
Yep.
I think thanks to Game Pass, we are seeing more and more Japanese games coming to Xbox that we would have never seen otherwise.
Game Pass eliminates the worry about lack of game sales as they probably get money up front and any actual game sales are a nice bonus on top.
Fingers crossed for Persona on Xbox.

@LtSarge Good points about the advantages of Gamepass. However, realistically I don't ever see a scenario where Atlus would favor Persona games for Xbox over PlayStation. Money does talk though, but decades of business relationships may triumph.

Return to xbox? Has it ever been on xbox?

@UltimateOtaku91 P4A and P4AU were.

You can play P4A in back compat mode now m

Persona 5 was a JRPG masterclass. It was leagues ahead of any rival in my opinion. It, and Ghost of Tsushima, are the only games I miss since I switched to Xbox this gen.