SEGA Sammy have bought Index, the parent company of Atlus. The £88 million buyout gives SEGA a whole raft of Atlus IPs which include Persona, Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei. The official comment from SEGA says:
“The Company believes that transfer of Index’s operations to Sega will create synergies, on the grounds that the deal will enable the Company to:
(1) gain access to prominent IPs in the home video game software, through which the Company can expect to achieve steady flows of revenue;
(2) expect further facilitation of revenue growth for the PC Online Game Business and Content Business for Smart Devices operated by Sega and Sega Networks Co., Ltd. by exploiting acquired prominent IPs and
(3) maximize the value of acquired IPs by effectively deploying them in the Pachislot and Pachinko Machines segment, Amusement Machine Sales and Amusement Center Operations segments.”
[Source: Eurogamer]
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Tags: atlus, buyout, dragon's crown, etrian odyssey, guilty gear, index, persona, sega sammy, shin megami tensei
Guilty Gear isn’t an Atlus franchise, they just published the first game in the US. In fact, iirc Sega already owns the Guilty Gear IP. At least the new Guilty Gear game runs on Sega arcade hardware.
I’m also not sure if Dragon’s Crown is an Atlus IP. They published it and helped with development, but it’s a Vanillaware game.
Ah! Cheers; I’ll update the story to reflect that.