At Taipei Game Show 2019 in January, Atlus brand owner Naoto Hiraoka spoke to Taiwanese website GNN Gamer regarding the company’s current and future games lineup. The interview was published today.
Here are a few key tidbits, translated by Persona Central:
- There are currently no plans for Atlus to work more closely with Sega‘s properties in the future, but the groups are in close communication with each other which has allowed for things like Yakuza and Sonic costumes in Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight and such.
- Persona 5 sales have topped 2.4 million copies worldwide.
- In the future, Atlus is targeting simultaneous releases for Japan and the Asian market.
- Regarding Joker in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: “Joker will participate in Super Smash Bros. mainly because of the invitation from Sora Ltd.’s Masahiro Sakurai. That is what led to this collaboration. Because Mr. Sakurai likes Persona 5 very much, and I personally like Super Smash Bros. a lot, my first thought when I received the invitation was ‘Great!’ I was very happy to establish a relationship for this collaboration.”
- Regarding if Joker in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate means Persona 5 will be released for Switch: “We don’t have a specific answer to give for that question, but I personally think that the Nintendo Switch is a very attractive platform.”
- Regarding the potential of Catherine becoming a series: “We need to observe players’ reactions before thinking about the next step.”
- “Shin Megami Tensei V is still under development. However, because this is Atlus’ first time tackling Nintendo Switch game development, there are many things to consider. How to present the game is our future challenge, so please wait patiently for follow-up news.”
- Studio Zero‘s PROJECT Re FANTASY is “going smoothly.”
- Regarding Atlus’ future challenges: “Because Persona 5 is a game which has achieved greatly, our biggest challenge now is to release a game which goes beyond the height of Persona 5, including the just mentioned PROJECT Re FANTASY, as well as some new projects which have not yet been announced. I hope that we can strive for excellence and to achieve results beyond Persona 5.”
- Regarding the potential of remastering Persona 3 and Persona 4: “Although we can’t specifically tell you anything at the moment, we have always received a lot of suggestions from the players. We have received and understood the voices of the players, and if there is an opportunity, we will actively discuss it.”