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Atlus USA kills rumors | no PC & Switch versions of Persona 5 & Yakuza 0

I wasn't expecting P5 on Switch but at the same time it doesn't seem like conclusive evidence... at all.
They're selling their game now, on the platform it is, that's it.

As a friend made me remember. Another guy like him was saying Gravity 2 was coming on Vita before the fated announcement.
It is indeed expected that a western PR guy for a Japanese company would re-iterate existing information on twitter. Even if they knew about the decisions their Japanese HQ were up to, which usually they aren't since Japanese companies tend to be hush hush to their regional branches, they'd still have to stick to the narrative until they have the greenlight to deviate from it.

In spite of that, there's still no sense in waiting for hypothetical versions, since you could potentially be waiting indefinitely.
 
Atlus Japan execs in a nutshell.

888.jpg
 
Or perhaps who mainly enjoys third party games. PS4 is the system with the best third party support without a doubt: pretty much all Western games and a good majority of Japanese third party games are on the PS4. Library wise, no other platform this gen matches.



Yeah, not really. It sure is in a great position, but unless you consider only big publishers, that's a wrong statement.
 

Frostman

Member
This isn't really a direct response to your post, but I'd like to use it to point out how the 'it was never on PC, why would it come to PC?'-talking point doesn't really mean much.
Games are never on PC... until they are.

Dark Souls wasn't on PC until it was, and now you have Dark Souls 3 being one of the 12 best-selling games of 2016 on Steam.
There was no Tales of-game on Steam before Zestiria, but it did well enough that Berseria is a simultaneous release as well.
There was a time where people laughed at the notion of a Disgaea game ever coming to Steam. Now NISA is busy putting their entire backlog on Steam one at a time, while at the same time bringing their new releases as well. They already have 9 games announced for Steam in 2017, of which at least half are new releases launching simultaneously with consoles.
Heck, we went from 'GUST games will never be on PC' to suddenly 3 games coming this year, 1 of which isn't even out yet for consoles.
Square-Enix was busy filling their Steam-catalogue with Final Fantasy games the last years. Now you currently have every mainline FF game except 1, 2, 12, and 15 on one platform.

And the list goes on.

Now of course there are obvious games that will never come to PC, I mean everyone who thinks Bloodborne or Uncharted will eventually come to Steam is delusional, but it's not unreasonable to hope that third-party games get ported over.

I understand that you said it wasn't a direct response to my post. But I also never said it wouldn't come to PC. I just said gamers shouldn't have an expectation to see certain games on their platform, especially when you can look at the dev/publishers track record.

If a previous Yakuza or Persona was on PC, I would say it's a guarantee it will get ported later down the line.
 
So MEA should be more of an outrage. And technically Persona 5 is on the PS3 so its not a PS$ exclusive.

You made no sense. One is a game coming to 3/4 current platforms while the other is a game coming to 1/4 current platforms.

Yeah, not really. It sure is in a great position, but unless you consider only big publishers, that's a wrong statement.

Of course AA/AAA games from renowned developers are going to be more desirable. PC does also have such exclusives but the genre is quite different in most cases (strategy, MMO, F2P shooters, simulation games etc).
 
You made no sense. One is a game coming to 3/4 current platforms while the other is a game coming to 1/4 current platforms.



Of course AA/AAA games from renowned developers are going to be more desirable. PC does also have such exclusives but the genre is quite different in most cases (strategy, MMO, F2P shooters, simulation games etc).


That's pretty short sighted to limit it to these genre. Also for the games you have cited which are, according to you, port begged, may I recall you that Sony announced these as "console exclusives" or "console debuts" ? It didn't came out of nowhere.
 
I mean, would he even be able to comment on future platforms before official announcements?

> PR guy

I mean, I get it. Guess he's pissed about the influx of Switch rumors and stuff lol. But of course he wouldn't say or even know what the future plans are anyway.

So... time to start "Persona 5 Fez / Golden version on Switch / scorpio / Mac / Linux" rumors?

No Switch No PC "currently" until SEGA say port it.

giphy.gif


The dream is dead guys.
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Realistically, you can't.
But if the developer and publisher believe so, and that belief informs their actions, there is no benefit to projecting something different

So there's a possibility that the audience is on PC then.
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
Need portable Persona 5 at some point though, come on Atlus.

The again thats something that would be announced from Atlus USA anyway - especially not now before the PS4/PS3 western release.
 

Kyry

Member
So there's a possibility that the audience is on PC then.

Absolutely.
I don't disagree with that possibility.
I just understand why the IP holder would rather not take that risk, particularly with properties as niche as these. With GTA and Final Fantasy treating PC like a second class market, why would Persona and Yakuza be any different?
 

prudislav

Member
may I recall you that Sony announced these as "console exclusives" or "console debuts" ? It didn't came out of nowhere.
kinda reminds the last PSX with inde games where they showed footage for bunch of already released and upcoming PC indies with most of them tagged as "console exclusive" ,"console debut" and sometimes even with "Only on Playstation" (rarely with an asterisk saying "Also available on PC")
 
This isn't really a direct response to your post, but I'd like to use it to point out how the 'it was never on PC, why would it come to PC?'-talking point doesn't really mean much.
Games are never on PC... until they are.

Dark Souls wasn't on PC until it was, and now you have Dark Souls 3 being one of the 12 best-selling games of 2016 on Steam.
There was no Tales of-game on Steam before Zestiria, but it did well enough that Berseria is a simultaneous release as well.
There was a time where people laughed at the notion of a Disgaea game ever coming to Steam. Now NISA is busy putting their entire backlog on Steam one at a time, while at the same time bringing their new releases as well. They already have 9 games announced for Steam in 2017, of which at least half are new releases launching simultaneously with consoles.
Heck, we went from 'GUST games will never be on PC' to suddenly 3 games coming this year, 1 of which isn't even out yet for consoles.
Square-Enix was busy filling their Steam-catalogue with Final Fantasy games the last years. Now you currently have every mainline FF game except 1, 2, 12, and 15 on one platform.

And the list goes on.

Now of course there are obvious games that will never come to PC, I mean everyone who thinks Bloodborne or Uncharted will eventually come to Steam is delusional, but it's not unreasonable to hope that third-party games get ported over.

It totally isn't the point being made. He simply said it's not like the expectation should be there because it's never been there. Yeah a game isn't on a platform until it is, but personally if a game has a prequel on that system, then I somewhat expect following games to be on that system. People can be disappointed, sure, but I don't see what gave them the expectation either.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
kinda reminds the last PSX with inde games where they showed footage for bunch of already released and upcoming PC indies with most of them tagged as "console exclusive" ,"console debut" and sometimes even with "Only on Playstation" (rarely with an asterisk saying "Also available on PC")

PC isn't a console so if the games were not available on other consoles their messaging would be right.
 

martino

Member
It totally isn't the point being made. He simply said it's not like the expectation should be there because it's never been there. Yeah a game isn't on a platform until it is, but personally if a game has a prequel on that system, then I somewhat expect following games to be on that system. People can be disappointed, sure, but I don't see what gave them the expectation either.

you mean brand then and not system or it don't work for lot of licences.
and thankfully for the brand defended here, most people were not thinking that way when they entered the market back then.
 

kswiston

Member
same way people know for sure Yakuza and persona are going to other platforms ;)

Absolutely.
I don't disagree with that possibility.
I just understand why the IP holder would rather not take that risk, particularly with properties as niche as these. With GTA and Final Fantasy treating PC like a second class market, why would Persona and Yakuza be any different?

Square-Enix is wrong in their approach to FFXV on PC. Especially in light of XV being down vs XIII pretty much everywhere. A same day launch on PC would have been sitting close to 1M by now. Probably more than what they ended up moving on XB1.

I think GTA5 could have done better on PC if it released at the same time as the PS4/XB1 version, but that game sold so many copies that the difference would have been negligeable to the cross platform sales total.
 

muteki

Member
I understand how in theory it shouldn't be and in a perfect world things would be different but PC is a platform choice to me, just the same as PS4 or Xbox is. I understand that deciding to go with one exclusively over the other is inherently going to mean that I'm going to miss some amount of games I'm interested in. There are some PC-only or Xbox-only games that I will likely never experience that sucks but I'm fine with because if every game came to every platform then the platforms themselves would lose part of their identity and uniqueness.

P5 at least, I think some handheld release is inevitable but I think a Golden-length delay between the two (at a minimum) is reasonable and 4+ years from now may or may not land it on a Switch or something else. It won't be the same name though, so saying P5 will never come to Switch doesn't seem like a stretch to me.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
Square-Enix is wrong in their approach to FFXV on PC. Especially in light of XV being down vs XIII pretty much everywhere. A same day launch on PC would have been sitting close to 1M by now. Probably more than what they ended up moving on XB1.

I think GTA5 could have done better on PC if it released at the same time as the PS4/XB1 version, but that game sold so many copies that the difference would have been negligeable to the cross platform sales total.

I think for those titles getting the game playable and ready for release on consoles was a higher priority than a PC version.
 
Absolutely.
I don't disagree with that possibility.
I just understand why the IP holder would rather not take that risk, particularly with properties as niche as these. With GTA and Final Fantasy treating PC like a second class market, why would Persona and Yakuza be any different?

GTA is different. They have enough brand appeal that they know they can get their audience to double dip.

With FF, it's pretty clear that 15 came in so hot that SE just didn't have the bandwith to develop a PC version in tandem and still ship in 2016. That's a failure of of SE's development process. But I don't think there is any doubt that a PC version will come eventually even if we may have to wait until 2018 so they can do all of the revised content deliveries first .

With smaller games, though, the PC audience has the potential to make up for the contracting Japanese console market. Y6 just opened to ~150k lower than what mainline entries were doing on PS3. That deficit could be covered in the future with well managed PC releases.
 

prudislav

Member
PC isn't a console so if the games were not available on other consoles their messaging would be right.
yep , but some were downright lying with Only on PS and PS4 exlusive ones
Its kinda annoying to have to browse the web for what happened to PC version of upcoming and if its still coming
- in some cases it was just as you said marketing and nothing changed ... but there were some cases of previously "PC exclusive games" where their sites were completely stipped of any mention of PC and you had to dig deep and hope for the devs to answer if its still happening
 
I think Sony paid for Persona5 exclusivity and it would make much sense for them. Otherwise Atlus would definitely thinking of a Switch port, even the spin-off sold well on 3DS. But perhaps another spin off is in development for Switch until Persona6 arrives.
 

Papacheeks

Banned
yep , but some were downright lying with Only on PS and PS4 exlusive ones
Its kinda annoying to have to browse the web for what happened to PC version of upcoming and if its still coming
- in some cases it was just as you said marketing and nothing changed ... but there were some cases of previously "PC exclusive games" where their sites were completely stipped of any mention of PC and you had to dig deep and hope for the devs to answer if its still happening

It is not sony's job to inform people of a pc version. Unless they themselves are publishing it for PC.
 

prudislav

Member
yeah its just the usual PR bullshit and contractual stuff of "killing the mentions of the other version because we gave you bag of cash" .... doesnt mean that I have to like it :p
But i guess this is the industry where lies sell and common sense and truthfullness is not welcome , especially from the big pubs.

This constant PR dance around the facts is just pathetic , but I guess thats PR is gonna PR :
"We releasing a game for steam , here is a vide, it will be done in a year" ......big convention...."Sony/MS gave us bag of cash ", "We are exclusive now - no plans for other plaforms" ... couple months later .. "we listened, surprise it drops on steam tommorow" :-( (its even funnier with japanese titles and translations)
 

kswiston

Member
I think for those titles getting the game playable and ready for release on consoles was a higher priority than a PC version.

Maybe, but if Square Enix didnt make a big deal about the September release initially, they could have released in March 2017 instead with a more polished console version and a PC port ready at launch or shortly after.

Again, they did take the time to work on a XB1 version, so I doubt another version on the same hardware architecture would have been that difficult. Hopefully Microsoft offered some marketing compensation for that, because the effort would have been better spent on PC going by the sales we got in the UK/EU. At the very least they wouldnt have had to make physical copies.
 

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
I understand how in theory it shouldn't be and in a perfect world things would be different but PC is a platform choice to me, just the same as PS4 or Xbox is. I understand that deciding to go with one exclusively over the other is inherently going to mean that I'm going to miss some amount of games I'm interested in. There are some PC-only or Xbox-only games that I will likely never experience that sucks but I'm fine with because if every game came to every platform then the platforms themselves would lose part of their identity and uniqueness.

P5 at least, I think some handheld release is inevitable but I think a Golden-length delay between the two is reasonable and 4+ years from now may or may not land it on a Switch or something else. It won't be the same name though, so saying P5 will never come to Switch doesn't seem like a stretch to me.

Biggest issue with this though is the fact that we are in the age of DLC, when that wasn't possible with P3 FES/P and P4Golden on the PS2/PSP/Vita. So the question now is whether they'll stick with the expanded version like we've seen or if they'll go with the DLC route, which would mean they could technically bring the base game over to other platforms sooner.

From a financial standpoint that could be more lucrative as instead of selling the expanded game for 60$ they'll be selling the vanilla game for 60$ and then various DLCs; costumes, personas, story, etc for potentially far more than sticker price. But then again they've had proven success with the expansion games with sales almost equal or greater than the original release, so they might find it prudent to stick to that formula. Plus having major additions to the game that arent available via DLC, like new social links, playable characters and other major plot/gameplay changes could result in greater profits via double dipping than they would see were they to sell that kind of stuff as a mere 15-20$ DLC.

In any event I still think a Switch version is relatively inevitable, at this point in time it's the only real handheld game in town and I just can't see them abandoning that very lucrative market they've had such success with in the past with Persona franchise specifically, but also SMT in general on Nintendo systems. But hey maybe the mobile phone/tablet market in Japan is mature enough and those devices are powerful enough for a solid P5 port that people are willing to pay a premium price for.
 

sense

Member
yeah its just the usual PR bullshit and contractual stuff of "killing the mentions of the other version because we gave you bag of cash" .... doesnt mean that I have to like it :p
But i guess this is the industry where lies sell and common sense and truthfullness is not welcome , especially from the big pubs
Or the more straight forward reason of mainline persona games being exclusive to PlayStation platforms and atlus doesn't care enough or have any interest to develop other versions for the time being as they are happy with the sales they get....
 

napata

Member
Of course AA/AAA games from renowned developers are going to be more desirable. PC does also have such exclusives but the genre is quite different in most cases (strategy, MMO, F2P shooters, simulation games etc).

Those strategy games (Civ 6 & Total war) will outsell the majority of games you listed earlier and will probably end up with better reviews as well. So I don't really get how they're less desirable. People don't portbeg for them because there's no chance of them being ported to consoles.

Also you should really revisit the XCOM 2 announcement thread. Actually I see people portbeg/being salty for not being on PS4 all the time. The BG&E2 thread is probably filled with it.
 
The notion of "yeah P5 Crimson will certainly come to Switch later" is a little strange to me. P3 Portable and P4 Golden were given to PSP and PS Vita because it was the same platform family as PS2. Maybe we should at least see how JRPG will be received on Switch in general ? Because you know, I don't think the last JRPG from Atlus on a Nintendo home console reached 50K in Japan.
 

MUnited83

For you.
The notion of "yeah P5 Crimson will certainly come to Switch later" is a little strange to me. P3 Portable and P4 Golden were given to PSP and PS Vita because it was the same platform family as PS2. Maybe we should at least see how JRPG will be received on Switch in general ? Because you know, I don't think the last JRPG from Atlus on a Nintendo home console reached 50K in Japan.
Good thing the Switch is going to be mainly a handheld on Japan then, and Atlus JRPGs had no issues selling on Nintendo's handhelds before.
 

Lightning

Banned
I love this. PC and Switch gamers needing to beg for ports while PS4 gamers get to sit back and decide whether they want to buy these games or not since we get pretty much everything first anyway.

I couldn't care less if these games go to other platforms, not buying Yakuza 0 anyway, since we're getting Persona 5 and the game doesn't change anything.

The port begging is funny though. Great not having to do that this gen.
 

m4st4

Member
I just heard Life Will Change for the first time and I'm SERIOUSLY debating whether I should get PS4 Pro or Switch. The game is an obvious masterpiece.
 
Good thing the Switch is going to be mainly a handheld on Japan then, and Atlus JRPGs had no issues selling on Nintendo's handhelds before.

That's certainly not your role to decide that, especially when Nintendo already repeat everywhere that Switch is first and foremost an home console. We will have to see how the consumers decide what the Switch is, with the picture certainly becoming more clear in one week.

In any case I've never heard before about a schizophrenic game machine being a home console for the West and a handheld for the East at the same time. That would be a first.
 
The notion of "yeah P5 Crimson will certainly come to Switch later" is a little strange to me. P3 Portable and P4 Golden were given to PSP and PS Vita because it was the same platform family as PS2. Maybe we should at least see how JRPG will be received on Switch in general ? Because you know, I don't think the last JRPG from Atlus on a Nintendo home console reached 50K in Japan.

Maybe Switch will get Persona Q Purple
 

prudislav

Member
Or the more straight forward reason of mainline persona games being exclusive to PlayStation platforms and atlus doesn't care enough or have any interest to develop other versions for the time being as they are happy with the sales they get....
i was talking about something different aka answering the post directly above mine (aka the mumbo jumbo with indies on PSX)
 
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