SEGA Reorganizes Atlus

Many of you are aware of SEGA-Sammy’s acquisition of Index Corporation (then-owner of Atlus and its subsidiaries) at the end of last year. SEGA-Sammy purchased the financially-troubled corporation and temporarily created the SEGA Dream Corporation, designed to manage Index’s business operations. Shortly thereafter, SEGA-Sammy fully assimilated Index by renaming SEGA Dream Corporation back to Index Corporation.

Now SEGA has that Index Corporation will be split into two separate entities. The first segment is a re-purposed Index Corporation, focused on such tasks as systems development and advertising. The other segment is Atlus, an entity purposed entirely for game development. Currently, Index Corporation houses 166 employees, and Atlus is staffed with 121. If only legally, it cements the preservation of Atlus proper. With this development, Persona series director Katsura Hashino took to the Japanese Persona website to post a personal statement, quoted here:

Hey all.

It’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally able to stage our comeback as a company at last. (Sobs.)

It goes without saying, but I know we’ve made you, the fans, worry a lot these past several years. We lost that which we thought we could once take for granted when Atlus ceased to be a proper company. Atlus continued to live on as a brand, but we had to do a lot of soul searching during those years, especially with respect to what made our games enjoyable on their own terms and and what it means to us personally to bring those games to life.

I might be a bit overdramatic when I say this, but I think much like people, the games that leave a lasting impression upon us are the ones that charm us and challenge us alike, ones that require more than mere passiveness on our part to enjoy and set out to change the status quo with good intentions. While it’s important for players to enjoy themselves when playing video games, I want ours to linger on in their memories for other reasons beyond that. Those are the things I’ve kept at the forefront of my mind as I keep pursuing this life as a creator that I’ve gone down.

And that’s not going to change moving forward.

We want to keep making the games that’ll make you all happy as fans and while we’re working hard to bring them to you, I hope you’ll continue to voice your passionate support for us as you always have.

The initial announcement of the acquisition brought much angst over SEGA’s handling of its new partner, but so far it does not appear that SEGA wants to change much of Atlus in a way that concerns their fans. While SEGA mentioned that Atlus would be free to experiment with some of their dormant IPs and Atlus has reassured fans that the acquisition won’t change their game development, short of a currently improbable rumor claiming Atlus USA would be localizing Yakuza 5, there isn’t much recent intersecting that we know of with regards to creative projects. If nothing else, we can’t suspect a surprise Sonic the Hedgehog appearance in Persona Q or Persona 5…yet.