Sega of America Will Be Publishing Atlus Games in North America from Now On

As long they don't mess with Persona I'm ok, just keep the series away from the bad Sonic Games.

This explains what's going on with that 7th Dragon game, too! I thought it looked too much like an Atlus game...

Kind of sad... Wonder what happens to AtlusUSA in the near future. Can't see them staying too relevant. Unless AtlusUSA localizes and slaps Sega's name on the end product.

Would be nice if they did Europe as well, that way we might actually get some discounts

"Okay mister Gerscovich, what direction do you think we should take with the Sonic franchi-"

Gerscovich: "Sonic Boomer: The Lyrics of Rise, now with extra legs!"

"...S-sir, are you sure-"

Gerscovich: "MORE BODY TAPE"

"..."

Gerscovich: "Featuring Knuckles."

"... Genius."

Nice. Hopefully, this doesn't impact what Atlus games do and do not get localized. Still waiting on that Shin Megami Tensei IV Final release date!!

Dark days are ahead of us my brethren....

I really hope this isn't the beginning of the end. Atlus almost has as many games on the 3ds as Nintendo does. If not for them I'm not sure I call it my all time favorite system. Let's just hope it's business as usual.

If what the president of Sega said was truly meant, we should start seeing the fruits of better games in the next year or two.

I believe he had an epiphany, and confessed that they have squandered consumer trust with garbage titles, and that going forward, they would be taking a stance of "if you're going to make a game, make a good one"

We have yet to see if this new appointment has stemmed from this policy change.

So has anyone else noticed that SEGA's new North American senior vice-president has the same name as Sonic The Hedgehog's arch-nemesis Dr. "Ivo" Robotnik.

RIP Atlus.

Does this mean the Atlus tax is gone?

@Neko_Ichigofan
If that's the case he might have a grudge against Sonic. He might just let Sonic Team continue to let Sonic games suck. Lol

Anyways, interesting news here. Guess Sega will be publishing Persona 5 on PS4 then.

@LN3000 Atlus still exists SEGA is just taking on the publishing duties for their games.

If this means dual audio for the next Etrian Odyssey game, then I'm fine with that.

Shin Megami Tensei X Sonic the Hedgehog when?

@Seacliff Etrian Odyssey games don't even have voice acting.

Hope this doesn't impede with Shin Megami Tensei 4 Final and EO5 worldwide release. As far as I'm aware Sega isn't all that great in bringing their stuff outside japan.

@BlueNitrous Untold 1 and 2 did, and Etrian Odyssey 5 is getting it as well.

Make a new snowboard kids!

@Spoony_Tech Me too! I'm with you on favorite all time system. Hopefully those Atlus games keep coming to us and don't go to phones and apple.

Lol at the people that don't realize Sonic Team has nothing to do with Sonic Boom.

The ignorance in this comment section is overwhelming.

Toss in an EOU3 announcement and it's all good.

@BlueNitrous Both Untold games have voices in story mode.

So Europe isn't part of "The West" now. Okay, I'll update my dictionary definition until it changes randomly again.

Ivo Gerscovich is a legendary brand officer. Him being in charge of the Sonic brand in the west is a positive.

@RainbowGazelle Maybe Gerscovich is the brand manager for both America and Europe, despite being senior vice president for Sega of America.

For a split second there, I thought the byline said "Also, the new chief officer for the Sonic brand has been disappointed"

Perhaps I got a brief glimpse of the future...

Something tells me we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Atlus's golden age.

Considering "streamlined for business reasons" is generally code for "fired everyone", Atlus USA as a publisher of non-Atlus games is finished.

This is good news hopefully lol.

@Whitebuffaloboy I guess they are now the equivalant to the Nintendo Treehouse now

@Sticker Naka wouldn't be happy about that

@Neko_Ichigofan Well Nintendo hired a guy named Bowser. Buisness as usual

@BlueNitrous The Untold series does

I hope the amazing atlus sales/discounts still happen for their games on the eshop regularly.

In other words, Atlus can no longer self-publish in North America. SEGA now controls what Atlus can publish in NA, for better or worse.

Remember that Atlus has been self-publishing titles like Demon's Souls, bringing such franchises over successfully to the USA. Atlus can no longer make that kind of... Determination (SMT4 Minotaur reference ;P) on their own. We haven't seen the effects of that yet, but eventually, we will. (And of course, some people are going to be either moved around or even laid off. But the publicly told reports probably won't admit that.) SEGA has completely screwed over the Phantasy Star franchise from coming outside of Japan, so this does not bode well for the more niche JRPG Atlus-based titles.

And yes, there are titles like Stella Glow that was published by Sega in Japan and Atlus in the USA, but ImageEpoch, the company that actually made the game, folded before it was released in Japan. For all we know, this could mean such companies will receive more propped up support in the future, or it could mean SEGA will make the the conclusion that such companies are not viable, and therefore future support for them will wind down or cease. Given SEGA's current direction, unfortunately, I'm thinking the latter will be more likely.

I am happy that Sega bought Atlus because it meant that Atlus could live on. As the article stated, there has also been an uptick in the number of Sega published games from Japan being localized (Stella Glow comes to mind). As long as Atlus titles do well I expect the situation will be good.

However, with acquisitions like this there is always the possibility that if sales take a down-turn in the future Sega could close Atlus and bring all of their IPs in-house where they would then sit unused. Konami took over Hudson, killed all projects that were in progress and have done nothing with Hudson's IPs since then.

As for Ivo Gerscovich:

http://www.connectionsbylebook.com/la2016/jury/ivo-gerscovich

Eh, I'm not so sure about him. He doesn't really seem dedicated specifically to gaming companies. However, he does have the... interesting distinction of being the Marketing Director of The Simpsons: Hit and Run, the PS2/GCN/Xbox Simpsons clone of Grand Theft Auto. So he's had some experience with the gaming industry for over 10 years now, by proxy.

Here's the part that's most relevant to us:

"Ivo put his entrepreneurial skills back to work in various global strategic marketing roles helping build new business units at entertainment studios including 20th Century Fox, Vivendi Universal, and Paramount Pictures. During this time, he launched many top entertainment brands globally including The Simpsons, Iron Man, Star Trek, Ice Age, The Mummy, Ghostbusters, Aliens vs. Predator, Barbie, Aladdin and Barbie working alongside Fox, Paramount, Disney, Universal, Sony, Marvel and Mattel. Joining Sega in mid-2015, Ivo is actively leading the charge to help grow the $1 Billion+ Sonic brand around the world while helping the team win awards (including Clio) and preparing for a busy 25th anniversary year for the acclaimed franchise."

All of that is relevant, but the bold words are immediately so. He's worked with the parent company of Blizzard, or in other words, Activision-Blizzard. He first joined Sega last year for the purpose of directing their brand management, so the role of Senior Vice President of Sega of America is quite a PRRRRROMOTION! (90s Sonic cartoon Robotnik reference ) Apparently, SEGA has been liking his performance, and anticipates a boost in big time marketing prowess.

This sounds good, but I'm worried about his other accolades: his longtime involvement in 20th Century Fox (owned by 21st Century Fox/News Corp) and Universal (owned by General Electric). These companies are firmly part of the Big 6 Monolithic Corporate Media companies of the USA. If that's the kind of management that's being brought to SEGA, then Gerscovich's rising influence may indicate that SEGA may also one day be sucked into the Big 666.

Of course, that's speculation, but it does make me wonder if this Ivo is indeed an Ivo Robotnik of the corporate world...

@Sticker Think about that from Yuji Naka's perspective. Don't you think that would be very creepy/scary, if a company you made a concerted effort to leave decided to merge with another company for the purpose of eating the smaller company you founded? (And yes, I know that post was a meme joke )

@Neko_Ichigofan Given his work experience/history, I'm worried that joke may not turn out to be such a joke after all.

They better bring SMT IV Final over here!

@MetaRyan A positive for SEGA, yes, but a positive for the public? I'm not so sure...

@WireWare "Let's put Atlus on it!"

Sonic Megami Tensei o_O

Originally, I actually thought this article was the obligatory April Fools joke. Apparently not. :/

Pardon my cynicism but this kinda reminds me of when EA acquires a company, it initially gives the company a boost where before they may have been struggling, and then begins to consume their identity after a few good games. Why not have the Atlus brand on their JRPGs? Atlus clearly is a respected developer and publisher for many gamers out there.

At the end of the day, we'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully this encourages localisation of more Atlus titles in Europe using the Sega branding than less.

Buuut what about publishing in Europe, an area traditionally ignored by Atlus except when it's mighty convenient for them to lament low sales in the region?

Europe plz??? Would love a boxed SMT game for once...

SEGA is just lucky that they got Atlus. If it weren't for Atlus, SEGA would be dead by now.

And yet, they don't make use of Atlus one bit....

This is a terrible news for the eventual localisation of SMT4 Final

@Socar Atlus isn't a very profitable studio. The main reason why they were bought by Sega recently is because Catherine made big losses for them. Another japanese studio that felt in the trap of AAA budget.

@OdnetninAges I don't even know where to start.

@bitleman I don't know where you got that from. Their parent company got into a spot of trouble and ended up declaring bankruptcy. Unlike in the west, where that can be the death of a company and the assets get sold off to lord knows whoever to do nothing with, in Japan the legal process attempts to rehabilitate the company. In this case, a bunch of companies bid to acquire them, and Sega won. Index Digital Media and Atlus came along as part of the package. Sega's larger goal may have been the Atlus brand, but Atlus isn't what sank that ship in the first place.