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[Kazza]

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On their strategy of acquiring existing small studios and cultivating new ones:

“We’ve got an internal team called Searchlight, and Searchlight's focus is to look for new opportunities, mostly content,” John Clark, executive vice president at Sega Europe, told GameDaily. “So whether that's through acquisition or incubation, that's their external development approach. It's a relatively new team, as well as it's a new approach. We work with a couple of studios who were looking for start-up opportunities. In particular, we look for the quality of the team. We look for the vision and the game that they're planning on bringing out. And if we consider that as adding value to Sega, then we take it to the next stage, which is what value does Sega bring to that? We think of ourselves now as developer-led publishers, as opposed to publishing-led games business.”

On streaming services:

“From our point of view, we work with partners, and we're not considering our own platform or our own subscription service,” Clark said. “At this stage we don't know really what subscription means for the gaming audience. We've talked to all the partners that you mentioned. We are part of the plans for Game Pass. And that'll give us a lot of knowledge. We've announced Football Manager as part of that. When it launches, we'll be able to understand how the gaming subscription audience interacts with the title and if subscription is a viable way forward for the games industry. We prefer, at this stage, to be working with channel partners who are investing their time and money to try and understand the audience what the audience wants.”

On Atlus PC ports:

“All I can say is that in working with Atlus, we felt incredibly privileged to be able to bring Catherine to PC,” Clark explained. “And we feel more strongly that there was positive feedback from the community, and we hope that there are people at Atlus who take that into account and do see the positivity of that. It hopefully has a positive impact on our titles going forward, but I can't speak on behalf of them. All I can say is, step one was always about getting Catherine onto Steam, and we're so pleased that we had the opportunity with Atlus to be able to do that.”

On Steam/Epic Games Store:

“We've built up an incredibly strong long-term business with Steam,” he said. “That's a great relationship for us, and we see it as a long-term relationship moving forward as well. With Epic coming to the table, we're really excited by that too, and we're really excited to see what that would bring to the market, what opportunities are to extend the reach via that content. And for us, it's not just about evaluating the revenue share. It's a really important component to it, one that has to be taken into account. But it's not just about that. It's about how you work to send your content to the consumers and deliver an ongoing experience and deliver a relationship.”

 

[Abriael_GN]

"on Atlus PC ports" -> Says nothing relevant at all.

 

[DiscoJer]

Out of all the Atlus games to port to PC, they picked Catherine?

 

[Kazza]

"on Atlus PC ports" -> Says nothing relevant at all.

I would say that this part is pretty relevant:

we feel more strongly that there was positive feedback from the community, and we hope that there are people at Atlus who take that into account and do see the positivity of that.

Many people assumed that the release of Catherine would be the first in a series of Atlus releases (including Persona 5), but from this statement it seems that things will proceed very slowly on a game by game basis, with no guarantee of further ports. It sounds like Atlus is still a little reticent about PC ports. The last time I checked, Catherine had fewer than 50k sales on Steam, so it didn't perform amazingly well (the Yakuza games, Bayonetta and Vanquished have all performed much better). Hopefully they realise that Persona 5 would be a different kettle of fish altogether from a last-gen puzzle/visual novel game.

 

[Kazza]

Out of all the Atlus games to port to PC, they picked Catherine?

Yeah. I'm not sure why Catherine had to be step one. Because it was an older game? In that case, why not Persona 4 Golden? I don't quite get the logic, unless they have secretly already started the Persona 5 port and wanted to slowly build up hype (which doesn't seem to be the case from the quote I mentioned above)

 

[Hudo]

Out of all the Atlus games to port to PC, they picked Catherine?

My guess is that of all the possible candidates Atlus could provide the source code for, Atlus chose to give the original Catherine (Maybe Catherine being on Gamebryo, which should have PC support anyway, impacted that choice?). I don't think that Sega Europe had a free hand in what to choose. But this is just speculation. I don't have any sources to verify this. I am really perplexed as to why Atlus are being so stubborn when it comes to multiplatform development. They are not a small indie developer and Sega clearly have an interest in multiplatform development for their own franchises. I am usually not one for "corporate meddling" by any parent company but in this instance I wish Sega would just order Atlus to get into the current century.

 

[Abriael_GN]

I would say that this part is pretty relevant:

Basically says "I know nothing, it's not my call, and all I have is hope."

 

[Danjin44]

Out of all the Atlus games to port to PC, they picked Catherine?

What’s wrong with Catherine? It was fantastic game, I’m also guessing Catherine was one of the few games Atlus made for multiple systems.

Unfortunately Atlus kind of being stubborn about exclusivity with Persona and SMT. Currently main line Persona games will only come for PlayStation systems and SMT will only come to Nintendo systems.

 

[Boss Mog]

Why don't we have Bayonetta+Vanquish on current gen?

 

[Danjin44]

Why don't we have Bayonetta+Vanquish on current gen?

We might get first Bayonetta on PS4 and X1 but Bayo 2 and 3 are going to be exclusive to Nintendo because just like Astral Chain they are funding the project. I would love to see Vanquish on PS4/X1 and Wonderful 101 on Switch.

 

[Kazza]

Basically says "I know nothing, it's not my call, and all I have is hope."

Which is very different than if he had said something like "We haven't yet decided which games are suitable for PC and when to release which games when", which would have inferred that Sega Europe are in control of the process, not Atlus. Reading between the lines, we can tell what the situation is.

If there had been something super important, such as a Persona 5 announcement, then I would have put that in the title, not tucked it away in the text.

 

[Graciaus]

Release persona 5 royal see profits then slowly port all atlus games to pc. I every other developer has started releasing pc games. Not sure why Sega doesn't just have someone else port stuff if atlus doesn't want to do it.

 

[DiscoJer]

What’s wrong with Catherine? It was fantastic game, I’m also guessing Catherine was one of the few games Atlus made for multiple systems.

Unfortunately Atlus kind of being stubborn about exclusivity with Persona and SMT. Currently main line Persona games will only come for PlayStation systems and SMT will only come to Nintendo systems.

Because Atlus is basically known for RPGs and Catherine is a weird, artsy dating game thing that not many people were all that interested in (though 50k in Steam sales is way more than I would have thought).

 

[Danjin44]

Because Atlus is basically known for RPGs and Catherine is a weird, artsy dating game thing that not many people were all that interested in (though 50k in Steam sales is way more than I would have thought).

It’s a puzzle game and not really dating game, despite how the cover art looks this game much more horror imagery more than being “sexy” (it does have some of that). Also before P5, it was best selling Atlus game.

 

[T-Cake]

I think they made the right choice with Catherine. Out of all my gamer friends, they were all interested in Catherine but no-one has mentioned Persona at all. But then again, I think Catherine is the only Atlus game that came out on Xbox. (Might be wrong.) I'm the only one who owns a PS3/4 and I'm not interested in Persona either. I don't know exactly why but it looks too Japanese which is probably not a great description but if you're not into Japanese culture in a big way, you'd probably not "get it". I could be way off track with that.

 

[Danjin44]

I think they made the right choice with Catherine. Out of all my gamer friends, they were all interested in Catherine but no-one has mentioned Persona at all. But then again, I think Catherine is the only Atlus game that came out on Xbox. (Might be wrong.) I'm the only one who owns a PS3/4 and I'm not interested in Persona either. I don't know exactly why but it looks too Japanese which is probably not a great description but if you're not into Japanese culture in a big way, you'd probably not "get it". I could be way off track with that.

Well if someone is not interested in Japanese games then they won’t be interested in Catherine in same way.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

It’s a puzzle game and not really dating game, despite how the cover art looks this game much more horror imagery more than being “sexy” (it does have some of that). Also before P5, it was best selling Atlus game.

P4 was their best selling game no?

 

[Danjin44]

P4 was their best selling game no?

I think because Catherine came for both 360 and PS3 it sold more than P4 on PS2, I don't know how Golden version on PSVita did. I could be wrong, but when Catherine came out Atlus celebrated how it sold and they claimed it was their best selling title.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

I think because Catherine came for both 360 and PS3 it sold more than P4 on PS2, I don't know how Golden version on PSVita did. I couled be wrong, but when Catherine came out Atlus celebrated how it sold and they claimed it was their best selling title.

Do we have data for Atlus games? I know Strange Journey Redux and Apocalypse sold horribly but that is it.

 

[Danjin44]

Do we have data for Atlus games? I know Strange Journey Redux and Apocalypse sold horribly but that is it.

Here is for Catherine:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_(video_game)

The PlayStation 3 version topped the Japanese charts in its opening week with over 140,000 copies sold while the Xbox 360 version came in 7th with over 21,000, and was able to outsell Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two World, which was released on the same day, by a margin of two-to-one. The game has also been commercially successful in America, selling 78,000 copies across both systems to consumers in its first six days, making it Atlus' biggest launch yet for a game. The game has sold around 500,000 copies by the end of 2011, being a huge success for the company; 260,000 copies were sold in Japan and 230,000 in North America. By 2017, the original game had shipped one million copies worldwide.

 

[T-Cake]

Well if someone is not interested in Japanese games then they won’t be interested in Catherine in same way.

No, that's where I disagree. Catherine had a much more western feel to it than your average Japanese game. Or maybe it's because it was more adult-orientated than a bunch of mopey teens?

 

[EightBit Man]

Would love to see SEGA's games on GOG.com one day. Games like Jet Set Radio, Shenmue I & II, Sonic Adventure, etc. deserve to be DRM-free.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

They seem to realise what Epic are doing at least.

ATLUS could at least port the older SMT games to see how they do. Seems like they don't like money.

 

[LazyParrot]

Out of all the Atlus games to port to PC, they picked Catherine?

I always assumed it was because it was fairly low risk in terms of the financial investment required to port it over. Not only was the game already out on multiple platforms, but it's also a lot shorter than a Persona game, which presumably cut down QA costs significantly.

 

[EightBit Man]

ATLUS could at least port the older SMT games to see how they do. Seems like they don't like money.

The only official localizations we've seen were ports to the mobile platform. These games deserve better, much better.

 

[near]

They seem to realise what Epic are doing at least.

ATLUS could at least port the older SMT games to see how they do. Seems like they don't like money.

It does come across as if they don't like money but there recent financial report begs to differ. Sales performance have been strong including overseas performance in EU and US, where they've exceeded prospects. Given that they're also developing a new studio (Studio Zero) to create new IPs, I can appreciate that they're not the type of company to exhaust existing IPs on every platform in this current climate.

 

[Hellblueboy]

They seem to realise what Epic are doing at least.

ATLUS could at least port the older SMT games to see how they do. Seems like they don't like money.

They do like money, PERSONA 5 sold like hotcakes.

PERSONA 5 Royal is a thing because they like money so much.

 

[Starlight Lotice]

They do like money, PERSONA 5 sold like hotcakes.

PERSONA 5 Royal is a thing because they like money so much.

They'd make much more on PC though. Even if they just release the oldest games!

 

[Danjin44]

They do like money, PERSONA 5 sold like hotcakes.

PERSONA 5 Royal is a thing because they like money so much.

But it’s not like Persona 5 Royal is some lazy re-release, they adding so much in to the game same with Catherine Full Body. In fact Atlus never makes simple re-release, they always add crazy amount of stuff in to them.

 

[iorek21]

Persona 5 on PC is a question of when rather than if.

P5 will be on Steam in the next couple of years

 

[Danjin44]

Persona 5 on PC is a question of when rather than if.

P5 will be on Steam in the next couple of years

Are you sure? did we ever get mainline Persona got released other than Playstation systems. I do hope they do both with SMT and Persona, especially SMT because that series rarely gets the love it deserves

 

[Kazza]

Although I appreciate Sega's hands-off approach with the studios they buy, when it comes to older ports I wish they would put their foot down. Their policy should be: we won't interfere with your creative process, but we reserve the right to port any game older than 2 years old to any platform we wish.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

Persona 5 on PC is a question of when rather than if.

P5 will be on Steam in the next couple of years

Question is will it be Persona 5 Royal? Or will it be the vanilla Persona 5 ported to PC like how the PC got vanilla Catherine instead of Full Body.

 

[Danjin44]

Question is will it be Persona 5 Royal? Or will it be the vanilla Persona 5 ported to PC like how the PC got vanilla Catherine instead of Full Body.

Good point! They might just release the “classical” version of Persona 5 on PC if ever does happen.

 

[The Mad Draklor]

Good point! They might just release the “classical” version of Persona 5 on PC if ever does happen.

Which would suck as I'm hesitant to buy P5 Royal for the PS4 due to Sony's censorship shenanigans.

 

[Danjin44]

Which would suck as I'm hesitant to buy P5 Royal for the PS4 due to Sony's censorship shenanigans.

It does suck, I wish it would have released on Switch or PC but for now chance of that is low. I’m hoping Atlus doesn’t let too much censorship from Sony. I guess we gonna find out with Catherine Full Body once it gets released.

 

[Bkdk]

So Sega is waiting for epic to hand them the check to bring all persona and SMT titles to pc. I’m hyped. Persona and SMT games are honestly best played on pc. With that demon fusion feature, a pc friendly UI will help the game so much. Mods will be a very nice addition for their games too.

 

[EightBit Man]

Are you sure? did we ever get mainline Persona got released other than Playstation systems. I do hope they do both with SMT and Persona, especially SMT because that series rarely gets the love it deserves

It's quite realistic to see Persona 5 as the game utilizes the Unreal Engine 4, meaning it's feasible to port. The Yakuza series happened after fans voiced their requests. Now we've seen Catherine too.

Two years ago: Want Yakuza and Persona on PC? So do SEGA

and more recently: Atlus survey asks which games you want ported to PC

 

[Danjin44]

It's quite realistic to see Persona 5 as the game utilizes the Unreal Engine 4, meaning it's feasible to port. The Yakuza series happened after fans voiced their requests. Now we've seen Catherine too.

Two years ago: Want Yakuza and Persona on PC? So do SEGA

and more recently: Atlus survey asks which games you want ported to PC

??? Persona 5 doesn’t use UE4, I think you are thinking SMTV, that’s the one that using UE4.

 

[EightBit Man]

??? Persona 5 doesn’t use UE4, I think you are thinking SMTV, that’s the one that using UE4.

Oops. You're right.