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Index (Atlus) under criminal investigation for fraudulent accounting

N

NotLiquid

Member
9thwonder said:
If a company was to buy Atlus, who would it be?
Click to expand...

Bamco maybe.

I could potentially see Nintendo wanting them on the virtue of having probably the only platform that seems to really like benefiting from having their IP on it (SMT), along with the FE partnership.

But I have my doubts about that. Atlus seems like a company who would definitely prefer to stay independent.
 
B

BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO

Junior Member
NotLiquid said:
Bamco maybe.

I could potentially see Nintendo wanting them on the virtue of having probably the only platform that seems to really like benefiting from having their IP on it (SMT), along with the FE partnership.

But I have my doubts about that. Atlus seems like a company who would definitely prefer to stay independent.
Click to expand...
Don't think nintendo would really care, although the SMTxFE is cool. I don't really see SMT being something they would care about or anything they can use. I do agree thaat Namco would be the one who would.
Psi said:
Aksys?
Click to expand...

Does Aksys have enough money?
 
T

TheBryanJZX90

Member
Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
I loved the P1P soundtrack. Then again, I wasn't a fan of most of the tracks in the original game (the battle music in the PS1 version is especially ear-rending).

The two butterfly songs (the intro & the world map theme) are especially good.
Click to expand...

Allright man, you asked for it, let's do it. As far as I can tell these are all of the ridiculous lyrics from the horrible P1PSP battle music:

Live with valid memory
The spirit of self consciousness
I'm just a player
Keep lying on the coat rack
The hate rape fools just don't stop
I see frmmm whrmm frmm death
The world is whole I sent you
Aw, my ride is bent
You reap me burn
溶けてゆく
Rose of my
Ray of light
Ready for burrito nowhere
Aw, my ride is bent
You reap me burn
安らいだ
My lust plays with no one
My lust let me feel life
Click to expand...

And in comparison, you think this music is worse? Opinions and all but...

I lived in Japan for four years, half of which was teaching English, so I've had plenty of experience with Japanese English, but even for me some of these lyrics were just unintelligible. And I'm all for hilarious broken English (the cake that's on the paper became the real thing to eat!), but only when I'm reading it. When it's sung directly into my earballs every 10 steps I take in a dungeon, and then repeated for what seems like hours at a time, any quirky charm wears off pretty quick.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Remember when the Atlus PR Twitter account tweeted right after the news broke that they will still be releasing all announced titles and that the Dragon's Crown demo events starting this weekend will continue without any issues?

Well it looks like they've now posted an update that the first Dragon's Crown demo event this Sunday in Tokyo has been delayed indefinitely "due to various circumstances". There is no actual reason given, and the site still claims that the remaining events (the next one is the following weekend) will take place as scheduled.

This could be completely unrelated and just a really bad coincidence. Or... itshappening.gif :(
 
D

Dresden

Member
Zz2oWaWl.jpg
 
B

BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO

Junior Member
duckroll said:
Remember when the Atlus PR Twitter account tweeted right after the news broke that they will still be releasing all announced titles and that the Dragon's Crown demo events starting this weekend will continue without any issues?

Well it looks like they've now posted an update that the first Dragon's Crown demo event this Sunday in Tokyo has been delayed indefinitely "due to various circumstances". There is no actual reason given, and the site still claims that the remaining events (the next one is the following weekend) will take place as scheduled.

This could be completely unrelated and just a really bad coincidence. Or... itshappening.gif :(
Click to expand...

WOW
 
M

Mengetsu

Member
This makes me sad....A world without SMT Or Persona? If I had a choice I would have Nintendo by them because at least they would let them continue there work and do what they do best freely. Namco will care about the money and units sold and wouldn't let them bring out mischievous titiles plus I hate Namco's track record of how long RPG's take to come to Stateside (I'm looking at you Tales of Symphonia PS3
LLShC.gif
)
 
W

wrowa

Member
Fuck. If everything goes down, I hope they can at least still release Dragon's Crown. It would be a shame if a unrelated party like Vanillaware had to suffer from all of this.

Also, is Atlus USA's business independent from Index? Or are they also going to face problems?
 
M

MechaX

Member
9thwonder said:
Don't think nintendo would really care, although the SMTxFE is cool. I don't really see SMT being something they would care about or anything they can use. I do agree thaat Namco would be the one who would.
Click to expand...

When considering that SMT4 sold the highest out of any non Persona 4 Megami Tensei game in over a decade, they might care about it just to have a good RPG series on their platforms. If it ever came to buying Atlus, Nintendo would definitely benefit from having a closer tie on mainline Megami Tensei and some of their other series (like Etrian Odyssey).

Dunno about Persona though, since the series was entirely on Sony platforms.

Edit: Holy shit, the Feds are seizing assets already? Yeah, this might get dicey really fast.
 
D

duckroll

Member
wrowa said:
Fuck. If everything goes down, I hope they can at least still release Dragon's Crown. It would be a shame if a unrelated party like Vanillaware had to suffer from all of this.

Also, is Atlus USA's business independent from Index? Or are they also going to face problems?
Click to expand...

The company we know as "Atlus USA" is legally known as Index Digital Media Inc. They are a wholly owned subsidiary of Index Corporation.
 
J

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
I hope Atlus will find a way to make it out of this. GungHo might be a good match for Atlus if they're interested.

Edit: Beaten.
 
K

kuroshiki

Member
MechaX said:
When considering that SMT4 sold the highest out of any non Persona 4 Megami Tensei game in over a decade, they might care about it just to have a good RPG series on their platforms. If it ever came to buying Atlus, Nintendo would definitely benefit from having a closer tie on mainline Megami Tensei and some of their other series (like Etrian Odyssey).

Dunno about Persona though, since the series was entirely on Sony platforms.

Edit: Holy shit, the Feds are seizing assets already? Yeah, this might get dicey really fast.
Click to expand...

SMT4 sold like what, less than half million? It got name value but none of the Atlus series are million sellers.

I hope someone save Atlus. -X
 
J

jcm

Member
Well this is bad news, although I suspect that the Index financial troubles have been negatively affecting Atlus. Maybe the best thing for Atlus fans would be a breakup/sale.
 
T

Tamanon

Banned
To be, it depends on how fractured the Persona and the Devil Survivor/SMT market is.

If there's not a ton of overlap, a Sony acquisition might make perfect sense as a way to at least help keep Vita afloat. It depends on how much of that JRPG market hasn't bought the machine yet.
 
M

MechaX

Member
kuroshiki said:
SMT4 sold like what, less than half million? It got name value but none of the Atlus series are million sellers.

I hope someone save Atlus. -X
Click to expand...

To be fair, not too many Japanese games sell a million, but it doesn't really change the fact that SMT4 did quite well in relation to the history of the franchise. Pushing more of the mainline MegaTen titles could at least give Nintendo a Fire Emblem-esque performing series, in Japan at least.

Of course, I would be happiest if Atlus could survive to keep doing what they are doing, rather than making a potential hobson's choice between mainline SMT and Persona.
 
B

badgenome

Member
duckroll said:
Remember when the Atlus PR Twitter account tweeted right after the news broke that they will still be releasing all announced titles and that the Dragon's Crown demo events starting this weekend will continue without any issues?

Well it looks like they've now posted an update that the first Dragon's Crown demo event this Sunday in Tokyo has been delayed indefinitely "due to various circumstances". There is no actual reason given, and the site still claims that the remaining events (the next one is the following weekend) will take place as scheduled.

This could be completely unrelated and just a really bad coincidence. Or... itshappening.gif :(
Click to expand...

Damn it! Vita just can't catch a break!
 
B

BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO

Junior Member
MechaX said:
To be fair, not too many Japanese games sell a million, but it doesn't really change the fact that SMT4 did quite well in relation to the history of the franchise. Pushing more of the mainline MegaTen titles could at least give Nintendo a Fire Emblem-esque performing series, in Japan at least.

Of course, I would be happiest if Atlus could survive to keep doing what they are doing, rather than making a potential hobson's choice between mainline SMT and Persona.
Click to expand...

But if multiple companies bid for Atlus, I don't think they would do it. It just isn't nintendo's style. They didn't buy Sillicon Knights after eternal darkness/twin snakes and they didn't bother buying factor 5 either.
 
M

MechaX

Member
9thwonder said:
But if multiple companies bid for Atlus, I don't think they would do it. It just isn't nintendo's style. They didn't buy Sillicon Knights after eternal darkness/twin snakes and they didn't bother buying factor 5 either.
Click to expand...

True, Nintendo is usually not one to just absorb companies like that (although, how did they get a hold of Monolith anyway?). But if Atlus pulls a THQ, this would be a different scenario from the other two. In Factor 5's case, they kinda screwed their reputation with Lair something fierce (and didn't necessarily need Factor 5 to release Star Wars games). In Silicon Knights' case, by the time buying Silicon Knights was feasible, Too Human already happened and I don't know if a company would touch the legal miasma Dyack got the company into with a ten-foot pole. And as acclaimed as Eternal Darkness was, that was still some years ago with no real way to see how viable the IP is currently.

Compare that to Atlus, which has recently proven the success of Persona/MegaTen, including on their own platforms.

But again, the exact same argument can be made for the benefit in Sony getting them for Persona. If things go south, any way for them to still develop their own games in the ways they see fit is the best scenario.
 
B

bonercop

Member
Haha, this is...I...I don't....


I couldn't ask for a better end to our journey on the P5 hypetrain. If this is how it ends, I will laugh so hard.
 
B

B.K.

Member
Now's a good time for Square Enix to buy the Atlus brand and all their production departments. They can probably get a good deal right now.
 
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