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NISA to no longer publish Atlus games in Europe, Atlus not distributing NISA in US
- Thread starter JehutyRunner
- Start date
We really need a reassuring statement from Atlus/ SEGA regarding the future of their games in Europe, but going from this information that they don't seem interesting in fostering a good business relationship with NISA then they probably aren't interested in reassuring European fans...
mugurumakensei
Member
Come on Atlus and region lock P5.
When you start charging premium just because you were acquired by a bigger company, you're not really giving them a lot of options.
Okay.
I hope this means that Sega will publish Atlus' games going forward or that Atlus will establish its own European division.
Otherwise Atlus can once and for all go fuck itself.
I defended Atlus' European releases plenty of times, because ever since NISA picked up the publishing duties, the situation has still been far from ideal but a lot better than in the past. Especially since NISA is pretty reliable, which couldn't be said about other publishing partners Atlus worked with in the past. If Atlus has lost this partnership without having a better alternative on hand, then they proved in a sad way that, yes, everyone who said they don't care about the satisfication of their European fans was right. So, please don't let this be the case. Don't just take away from us the only good thing you gave us in the last years.
I hope this means that Sega will publish Atlus' games going forward or that Atlus will establish its own European division.
Otherwise Atlus can once and for all go fuck itself.
I defended Atlus' European releases plenty of times, because ever since NISA picked up the publishing duties, the situation has still been far from ideal but a lot better than in the past. Especially since NISA is pretty reliable, which couldn't be said about other publishing partners Atlus worked with in the past. If Atlus has lost this partnership without having a better alternative on hand, then they proved in a sad way that, yes, everyone who said they don't care about the satisfication of their European fans was right. So, please don't let this be the case. Don't just take away from us the only good thing you gave us in the last years.
Sumio Mondo
Member
Mate it's really wishful thinking to think that the likes Atlus or SEGA would actually budge on this point - Sega closed loads of their European branches and downsized (too much, imo) and then Atlus are pretty saying they are too small to handle Europe too when NIS America were able to despite their name. It honestly sounds like the publishing arm of SEGA are just expecting Atlus USA to do everything, which is bonkers. We're talking about a company that released SMTIV almost two years after the US release, never released Strange Journey in Europe and region locked Persona 4 Arena.
Persona 5 and SMTIV: Apocalypse are still up in the air despite both being mainline game entries from two of Atlus's tentpole franchises. Who knows what's going to happen now. It means we definitely, definitely won't get 7th Dragon III and anything to do with FuRyu and the like from now on though. We probably won't get any of Vanillaware's stuff either now due to this. It fucking sucks.
Eolz
Member
Only thing you'll get is "we're working on it, it's hard".
I feel bad for him, not for Atlus and Sega.
I'd love to think that as well, but Sega isn't even releasing 7th Dragon III or the Classics Collection in Europe - despite those being proper Sega games in the US.
So, if Sega won't even release its own niche games in Europe, then what are the chances they are interested in the Atlus games that aren't called Persona 5?
WHAT???
Because we shouldn't have to mess around with multiple accounts, waiting months and buying things twice for relatively major releases in a large market that every other publisher manages to deal with?
Seeing as various NA gaffers flipped out over waiting all of three weeks after Japan for Dark Souls, I find it hard to believe that the longstanding issues with Atlus and their unreliable release plans (if they release at all) for EU players over all their games over a period of years are so easily disregarded.
I talked a lot with Konami's old social media guy during the whole Kojima fallout. Now that was a tough job.
When I saw the thread title, I thought "Oh boy! That's good news! I guess that means SEGA will do it in-house now!"
That's not what the article said...
Yeah, I know. Still, gotta stay somewhat positive.
I also wouldn't worry about Persona 5. That's a game a lot of publishers bigger than NISA are actively interested in (well, thinking about it, maybe Atlus not wanting to give P5 to NISA might be the reason for this break up). Everything else, though...
Literally every Japanese publisher that treated Europe badly during the last console generations are managing to release their games simultaneously in NA/EU now (Bandai Namco, Square Enix, etc.) with Atlus/SEGA being the sole exception.
I still remember the times when we had to pray for a Tales game to come to Europe or when we had to wait half a year for FFX and still had to deal with PAL-slowdown. Not to mention all the games that we never got at all...
Fast forward to today and both BN and SE release their games simultaneously in both regions as it should be.
Faster than NISA? Ye, right. All this means is that we will no longer get ATLUS games in Europe full stop. /doomandgloom
Man fuck Atlus.
There comes a point where "I'm reeeeealy sorry EU fans but it's just soooo complicated to make it work even though every other damn publisher in the industry manages it. We're working on it lol" stops sounding credible; and shit like this makes it worse.
Come on PR guys, just tell us "Fuck you guys and your dumb continent" like you obvious clearly really think.
There comes a point where "I'm reeeeealy sorry EU fans but it's just soooo complicated to make it work even though every other damn publisher in the industry manages it. We're working on it lol" stops sounding credible; and shit like this makes it worse.
Come on PR guys, just tell us "Fuck you guys and your dumb continent" like you obvious clearly really think.
The Cartographer
Member
I'm starting to not care anymore.
KirbYuuYuu
Member
What was the last game Atlus published for NISA in America?
and this will be the setting of shin megami tensei v
That means that NISA made use of AtlusUSA distribution channels in the past and now they won't anymore.
Don't really think this bodes badly for Persona 5, the main line games tend to pull good numbers in Europe. It's the spinoffs and niche titles from Atlus that are a worry.
It's kind of sad how SEGA of America and Europe have changed positions from half a decade ago. Where as one side of the company was pushing for a better representation of the companies legacy with titles like THOTD Overkill, Sonic Racing, the Outrun ports etc the other was relying on outsourced licensing cash grabs, SOE was generally considered the good one. That's not the case anymore and I wonder what caused the sudden change in direction.
It's kind of sad how SEGA of America and Europe have changed positions from half a decade ago. Where as one side of the company was pushing for a better representation of the companies legacy with titles like THOTD Overkill, Sonic Racing, the Outrun ports etc the other was relying on outsourced licensing cash grabs, SOE was generally considered the good one. That's not the case anymore and I wonder what caused the sudden change in direction.
it's not mainline if it doesn't take place in tokyo
europe japan supercontinent confirmed. finally
Interesting. So the rumor about P5PC might be true after all, despite the fact that Atlus denies everything. They can release a PC port with a delay for west only, looks like Sony don't really care about PC ports (Rapture, Danganronpa). But I guess they will wait a year or so, so even if it happens, we won't see it until, like, 2020.
Nothing will really change. They already used many publishers besides NISA and from now on they just won't use NISA at all.
E_Darkness
Member
Can't wait to get Etrian Odyssey V or Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse. And get them digital only. And to never get them on sale ever.
I should've just bought a NA 3DS.
zerokoolpsx
Member
Whelp, not looking good for Europe.
Eolz
Member
SMT Strange Journey 2 then!
Toadthemushroom
Member
Was thinking this too - they've pretty much taken the same attitude as some other publishers did leading into current gen that mobile/PC are the only formats worth bothering with in any significant capacity, with everything else being small by comparison.
Atlus have now been published in the EU by Koei, Square Enix, Ghostlight, NISA, Sega, Deep Silver, Zen United, PQube, and Nintendo. Every single one of those relationships, even the one with their fucking owners, didn't produce consistent and/or feature complete releases with the US. It's pretty clear that Atlus aren't a good company to work with. NISA did the best job, and now that's no more.
None, but they did handle the distribution on the bulk of their titles, like the various Disgaea titles and the Dangan Ronpa series. NISA also uses K-T for some titles and in return helps them out with putting together LEs for those titles.
Ludger Kresnik
Member
The change here is that instead of their stable deal with NISA (excepting pretty much only SMTIV and P4AU), we're probably going back two gens to the era of dealing with 30 different publishers and every other game being skipped entirely.
OmegaDL50
Member
The only one I can think of was years ago which being the first Disgaea release on PS2.
I don't recall of any other NIS games that Atlus published in the West.
Sumio Mondo
Member
They have burnt too many bridges now, if that list is anything to go by. Still wonder what the fuck happened with Nintendo Europe publishing SMTIV, something similar?
EDIT: Didn't Ubisoft used to publish stuff too from Japanese developers like Atlus? If so, they can be added to that long list.
In the past few years, pretty much every Atlus game that got a European retail release was published by NISA.
And before that were the dark times with a ton of games that didn't get a European release at all or were published by companies like Ghostlight or Zen United, which did a consistently bad job (though, Atlus might to blame for that as well).
NISA was established a short time after Atlus did Disgaea for NIS, and since Phantom Brave, all of their titles have been published by them, though distributed by Atlus.
For a long time, NISA was actually in the same building as Atlus USA before moving out.