The Persona Series Has Now Sold More Than 10 Million Copies Worldwide

Like Ryuji would say; FOR REAL?!

Imagine what this number would be if they put P4 and 5 on switch!

Persona is a wonderful series. Even 20-plus-year old Persona and Persona 2 are very much playable today. It is a shame we don't get them on Nintendo hardware.

@Dayton311 I'd happily pay full price for P5, P4G and even P3P on Switch!

Why is that a milestone?

Nintendogs has sold 23.96 million copies on DS, it's only a single game.

Congrats Persona. I just wish they would release Persona 5 for the Switch.

congrats nice job!

@nintendolie Because a lot of video games franchises don't reach 10 million. Persona is a way more niche game than Nintendogs and thus didn't get the casual market that made that game a hit, so it had a longer road to go.

It's nice and all. I just wish Atlus would port the main series Persona games to other platforms. If it's some sort of deal with Sony, I can understand, but a Persona 5 port would do amazingly well on the Switch given Joker's inclusion in Smash. Heck, I bought and played Persona 5 because of Smash, so imagine how many copies it would sell on Smash's console.

@nintendolie Why is Nintendogs selling 24 million copies a milestone? GTA V has sold 110 million copies to date. Clearly that invalidates Nintendogs' success.

Persona must be exhausted from all those sales. Better go to bed early and get some rest

Alright. I can sense the types of comments this thread is about to be bombarded with so let me explain.

Persona 5 on the Switch seems possible, but is literally impossible considering Atlus Japan's stance on their IPs going multiplatform. Since the original Revelations Persona on the PS1, the series has always stayed PlayStation exclusive, at least the main series. The primary reason being that Atlus believes that if they relegate their best selling IP to a single platform, then those that discovered said IP would buy future PlayStation systems to continue the main series and support them as a company. It's also why Catherine is now a PlayStation exclusive alongside Persona, or why Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei are Nintendo exclusive.

Another reason is that Atlus typically tend to release their best selling franchise installments on whatever system has the best install base at the time, garnering more attention. Its why Persona started on PlayStation in the 5th gen; its why Nocturne is the sole game in the franchise on PS2, and also why Persona 3 and 4 were on there.

Now I know what you might be thinking, "But the Switch is now the fastest selling console worldwide and one of the best selling consoles of all time! Why isn't Persona 5 on Switch?". Firstly, Persona 5 released while the Switch was still in development, and it made sense from a business perspective to put the game on the best selling console at the time, the PS4, as was also series tradition to retain the loyal fanbase of PlayStation owners and entice them into buying PS4s to experience the next installment in a series they heavily supported. See, now both of the mindsets Atlus carries as a company apply to this one game and the platform choice of the PS4. The reason why Royal, then is also a PS4 exclusive is because Persona 5 on PS4 already proved to be a massive success for the company, becoming the fastest and best selling title in series history, so obviously, they'd want to retain all the people who gave them and their game attention, despite the Switch having overtaken the PS4's lifetime Japanese sales. Then again, Royal was probably in development for a while before then.

The reason they put spinoffs like the Q games and most recently, P5 Scramble on platforms outside PlayStation, is quite frankly because the company sees it as a low risk effort to try and entice people into picking up the console the main series is relegated to and give the main game more attention. It's probably also why Persona content in Smash is one of many different crossovers Persona 5 has in particular with other companies, just to boost awareness for the main game and get people to pick up PS4s. It was likewise, a smart move to reveal Joker's inclusion at the Game Awards, and appeal to that audience that has a sense of familiarity to the character because Persona 5 was nominated for best game OST and GOTY, but ended up winning Best RPG overall.

Atlus doesnt work like other gaming companies. They dont see other platforms as an opportunity to find new audiences, but instead to bring them in and merge them with audiences they've held close to them for years. Until and unless they change the way they look at how multiplatform titles are beneficial for their growth as a company, they won't even consider putting a game as big as Persona 5 on other platforms outside PlayStation, and the same applies to SMT on Nintendo systems.

And that mindset has worked extrordinarily in their favor to this day. Because of that Persona 5 is frankly never coming to Switch because Atlus doesn't want it to.

If the future is anything like Persona 5... That number will keep on growing. Well deserved, start Daydreaming of Persona 6

Persona 4 and 3 characters were also in BBTAG (as "Persona 4 Arena" characters), which was actually my first Persona-related game. I went on to buy Persona 5 after that, and Joker was announced for Smash while I was in the middle of it, lol.

I also bought Q2, and I plan on playing the other games too. Mostly in reverse release order, with the exception of games that have direct sequels. (I'll play P4 Arena and P4 Arena Ultimax after P4, and P2:EP after P2:IS, for example.)

@Ralizah GTA V is multi platform, Nintendogs was on a portable and a new franchise, and it's not even a real game.

@Dayton311 easily plus 5m in a few months if not weeks

@AnnoyingFrenzy Nintendogs is way more niche than Persona. It's not even a real game, for something so niche to sell over 20 million is a phenomena.

Just look at the recent DS vote here at NL, no one even remember Nintendogs (which was the DS killer app back then).

And I still don’t know anything about it

@BlueBlur101 Your comment makes a lot of sense, but I'm still salty. Even though I own P5 and I'm almost done it, I desperately wish P5R would come to Switch as well. Persona games just work better on portable devices. Every persona game except P5 is available portable. Now that Sony is out of the handheld market (rip Vita, you were great), it would make sense for Atlus to treat the Switch as the new portable Persona porting machine.

10 million copies over the course of 23 years and split between 13 games doesn't really sound impressive.😐
Also it is mostly Playstation-exclusive and we all know, that EVERY game on Playstation sell at least millions of copies.

@nintendolie Is it really?

Nintendogs felt more like a casual game that people who aren't that into video games bought, like some games on the Wii (and who cares about those games when ranking the best titles on Wii?). It used the many gimmicks of the system, like a way of promoting the DS's features.

Like the Wii, the DS is one of the best selling systems of all time, and also, wasn't Nintendogs at some point bundled with the DS? So it makes sense the game (or games, as there are different versions) sold well. I guess Nintendogs, at the time, filled a void that Tamagotchi had left.

10 million for a niche JRPG-spinoff series mostly released on one platform is actually good and thanks to Persona 5 that popularity has grown (P5 stands for almost 3 million of those sales).

Persona has been more niche, but it's beginning to become more mainstream for every new game.

@MrBlacky Given it's a spinoff series of a niche RPG game and very Japanese, in a school setting, I would say it actually is impressing, especially as the latest game, Persona 5, stands for more than 25% of those sales. So it's a series on the rise. Imagine how much P6 will sell. I think its success is comparable to that of Fire Emblem.

We never saw it coming.

I'm really one of the few people who doesn't get warm from Persona. Just saw gameplay and it's so not my game and for hardcore RPG lover. Well you can't always love every game I guess. . NEXT

Soooo like less than Breath of the Wild only.

Well finally the folks at Atlus can go to that fancy buffet in Shibuya to celebrate.

Persona 4 golden still stands as my favourite game of all time! Although I loved it so much I am too afraid to play persona 5 en 3 because the tones of those 2 are vastly different and I might dislike them compared to 4.

@nintendolie Stop ruining the moment

@Snivy102 Meanwhile in Atlus JP Headquarters....

"What's a port? Is it like the ports you see along a dock?"

"Oh, OH a multiplatform port! I see"
"....wait there are other platforms besides PlayStation?"

"But by doing that we betray....the natural order. No."

@BlueBlur101 SMT was on playstation before Nintendo, so there is precedent for their franchises to jump platforms. The strategy you describe makes no sense, especially now that they're owned by SEGA who loves multiplat games - P5 is on PS4 because Switch didn't exist when it was developed, because Persona's audience was already on PS, because PS had what...75 million PS4s in the wild when Switch launched, and I strongly suspect because they don't want to or are unable to split internal resources to port games to other systems. It's also possible Sony has some sort of exclusivity deal behind the scenes, which certainly seems to be the case for Catherine. It's not because they're executing some strategy of pulling in gamers from other systems to buy PS4s and continue the franchise. The sales aren't THAT good. 10 million over 5 main games and spinoffs over the past 20ish years? AAA games do that in a couple months sometimes. I guarantee no one at Atlus or SEGA believes that Persona Q on 3DS or Joker in Smash is going to convince someone to buy a PS4 to play P5. P5 only did around 2 million in sales on PS4 - respectable, but not exactly a juggernaut. It wouldn't need huge numbers on Switch to be considered a success. I guarantee if it was feasible, they'd multiplat in a heartbeat because MONEY. I just wish they'd be more transparent about why it's not coming.

Edit: I've been informed that SMT 1 and 2 were Nintendo before SMT debuted on Sony's platform. Despite my original post's lack of precision on franchise history, my point still stands.

@Ralizah Buncha wannabes. Candy Crush Saga has been downloaded 2.5 BILLION times. And yes, it's free, but I bet the revenue from CCS is way higher than any other game mentioned here. They were making a million dollars a day at one point.

Clearly the superior game, no? 🤣

I'm sure this site did the 8mill mark.

But would be a lot more if they pushed onto Switch

I've always been really interested by the Persona series, although for whatever weird reason I never played the PS1 or P2 entries when I owned those systems. I thought I'd get into the series with Persona Q2 (via Gamefly), but boy did I not enjoy it. It just struck me as a very bad Etrian Odyssey clone - complete copy of the dungeon mechanics and party structure, and I strongly disliked the characters and story so didn't get very far. Maybe it was too much of a continuation of the first game and they expected the player to have completed it? In the end I'd rather just play an EO game.

Well done Atlus! Probably my favourite 3rd party publisher.

It hurts that they don’t have any games on my favourite platform yet 2-3 years in. Although they are the kings of releasing their games late in a consoles lifetime I suppose.

@FantasiaWHT the Q series are spinoffs of the main games in the style of EO (that’s intentional). They’re crossover games with characters from every mainline game, so it expects you’ve played all the mainline game to already have attachments to the characters.

@NoxAeturnus Except you’re completely wrong about SMT being a PS franchise first, series debut was in 1987 on the Japanese NES and the first mainline games and spinoffs were all on NES/SNES. The first PS SMT release wasn’t until 1996, with the first Persona game. SMT 3 is the online mainline game to debut on a non-Nintendo console, the other classic SMT games had ports on the PS1 but they all appeared on SNES first.

@nintendolie What Quarth said. How could you possibly say Nintendogs is more niche when it is clearly not in any capacity?

Hard to get excited about this news seeing as how little relevance it has to Nintendo.

We have what from Atlus for this Gen? Q2, the Warrirors-esque nobody asked for, and Joker in Smash? Hard to really care about a company that doesn't really care too much about Nintendo.

@BlueBlur101 You assume Atlus cares about selling consoles when they don't.

@DudeDuder People make this claim, and while true, didn't Nintendo not allow Atlus to release them in the west?

@ShadJV That makes sense. It sure felt like you were expected to already have an attachment to these characters, there was little to no introduction of them.

@OmegaDestroyer "Hard to really care about a company that doesn't really care too much about Nintendo."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlus_games

@Trajan I never said they did. I said they felt that I believe they wanted to stick to PlayStation out of tradition and to retain the fanbase they amassed over the series' evolution

They use the spinoffs to entice people into joining the fanbase they have already amassed, because the main series is only relegated to a single console

@NoxAeturnus you do realize the series BEGAN on the Famicom/Super Famicom in Japan right?

Outside of SMT Nocturne and SMT Nine on the og Xbox, every mainline installment was Nintendo-exclusive unless I'm missing something

@NoxAeturnus SMT started with Nintendo. The third game is where the mainline jumped to sony... only to come back to Nintendo for 4 and 5. The spinoffs tend to be on other platforms (not all of them but Persona for instance). That being said we are getting that musou game which may lead to more ports or future titles... or not. Only Atlus knows for that.

Bring one on the switch because of his entry in smash, almost everyone will buy it.

@FantasiaWHT yeah it’s made for fans of the series. I haven’t played any (though I watched a friend play a lot of P5) but when I considered buying Q2 he warned me not to, that I wouldn’t enjoy it without having played any mainline games.

On one hand, no P5 on the Switch is a crime. On the other hand, no P5 on the Switch makes a Tokyo Mirage Sessions port more realistic, which I'm all for.
Best case scenario: both.

Bravo! The games look fun and what I’ve heard of the music is groovy, but pity I’ll never play any of them because I’m not investing in a second system. I should be grateful, as the Switch already has more good games than I have time for.

A quality series should always deserve big success.

@DudeDuder @Ryu_Niiyama @BlueBlur101 Actually, I didn't know that, but thanks for informing me. I jumped into SMT at 3 and never knew anything about the originals. Being wrong on that point doesn't negate my other arguments, and my original point - that SMT is an example showing that Atlus doesn't always cleave to a single platform - still stands in spite of my lack of precision on franchise history.

I don't give a damn about this overrated and overexposed franchise.

I really need to get into this series. I have Persona 5 sitting on my PS4 right now, but I haven't used my PS4 to play games since March 2017 for some reason...

@Heavyarms55 Do it. I just played through it. Took me 2 months and 100 hours. Fantastic game. Haven't played any of the others.

@NoxAeturnus The way I look at it is, they only make the jump to other platforms if they see the potential for the jump to benefit them financially, which is why they would usually put their games on the most successful handhelds and home consoles on the market during each console generation. I know SMT Nine flies in the face of that logic considering how poorly the Xbox performed in Japan but for the PS2 onwards it was definitely right to assume so. The reason Persona Q was made in the first place was to capitalize on the 3DS' massive install base to begin with, since some of those owners had been requesting a Persona game be made for the system for a long time.

@Trajan I know it's supposed to be great, it's why I bought it. But I have so many games I am playing and I weirdly don't like dividing my time between consoles. It's like if I am playing games on Switch or PS4 or 3DS or PS3 or whichever, then I am only playing that console. I don't know why I'm like that, but I've always been that way. If/when I finally get caught up with my Switch games, I'll get around to PS4 again. Still want to play Spiderman PS4 too.

Persona 4 Golden is one of the best games I have ever played. In fact was my favourite game of the last ten years, until Breath of the Wild dethroned it. I have never cared so much about the characters in a game before. I am chronically impatient scene skipper normally, but P4 drew me in.

Persona Q is a chunk of s#@t and not a real Persona game.

@BlueBlur101 P5 was originally developed for the PS3 and ended coming out on PS3 and PS4. If the PS3 can run it then the switch can run it.

@TempOr man, I'd love an Apocalypse port. One of my favourite RPGs of all time. Would look awesome in hd as it looked damn good even on the 3ds. The atmosphere was amazing in that game.

@matdub It's not a matter of whether the Switch can run it. It can probably run it flawlessly (well, maybe not royal but definitely vanilla with minor compromises). It's just a matter of whether Atlus is willing to change their stance and ideologies on multiplatform games in general that aren't spinoffs.

@Alucard83 I didn't think Persona was my kind of game until I played Persona 5, and now i'm hooked. If you like RPG's it's worth a shot since it's definitely one of the better ones released in the last few years.

@matdub Did you play P5, just curious I loved P5, but haven't played P4 Golden.

@dougphisig I got P5 then I developed a crippling Destiny addiction which devoured 100's of hours. Then I got a switch and the PS4 gathered dust for a bit. So far I think P5 is great but one of the things I loved about P4 was that I fell in love with the characters in a way that I have never felt in a game before.

@matdub I loved the characters in P5, I also think that it does have a little bit of a slow start, so depending on how far in you are it definitely picks up and obviously some of the characters are probably more interesting than others. Heck one of the characters you don't even get until later in the game anyways.

@PKBegley overrated and overexposed are words to describe Pokemon not Persona