In an interview with MVC, Atlus CEO Naoto Hiraoka has offered his view on the release of Persona 5 and the declining console market in Japan, as well as their plans for the West. Saying that Persona 5 has “obliterated all expectations” in Japan, he also notes that Atlus has “very high expectations” for Persona 5 in the West, further noting that:
Each and every staff member is working extremely hard to ensure it sets the gold standard for our localisations and culturalisations”.
Despite the decline of Japanese console games market, Hiraoka clarifies that Atlus has managed to maintain approximately the same sales ratio for their titles, a very rare case in Japanese-based publishing. Even so their target audience isn’t just limited to Japan, and after their success in North America, he hopes to move on to Europe where they recently teamed up with publisher Deep Silver. Regarding Deep Silver, Hiraoka had this to say:
One of the things that Atlus in the Americas prides itself on is being a leading Japanese subculture provider. The only company with an understanding and track record of this is Deep Silver. They are the best partner we could ask for, and we will be very closely with them going forward as we focus on spreading the Atlus brand to European territories.
He also sees a growing interest in JRPGs outside of Japan, and says Atlus will be “forging ahead by continuing to deliver these games to the West”. Regarding the Switch, he says there’s nothing to announce at this point, but notes that the device “is making for some interesting potential”. You can read the complete interview here (page 18-19)!
Judging from the interview, Atlus is confident and ambitious when it comes to expanding their brand in the West, and that bodes well for all the Atlus fans there! In particular it’s good to hear that Atlus is serious about expanding their brand in Europe. In the past things haven’t always gone smoothly there, with their releases in Europe suffering long and repeated delays.
More recently, European fans have expressed their concern over poor communication regarding a free Persona 5 theme which was supposed to have been released last week on the PlayStation Store but never materialized. Atlus U.S.A. pointed fans to Deep Silver for more information, but the latter have yet to reply. It’s a bit of a false start for Atlus and Deep Silver when it comes to the Persona 5 release in Europe, but hopefully they’ll end up resolving this matter soon.
Via: Nintendo Everything