Sega buys Atlus for 141 million dollars

Sega has announced today that it has taken over the operations of Index Corporation, the Japanese company that owns cult favorite developer and publisher Atlus.  Atlus gives the hedgehog the famed Shin Megami Tensei series, which includes Persona, as well as the Etrian Odyssey franchise.  It is unknown at this time if the publishing rights to any future Dragon's Crown games would fall under this as well, since they were not developed in-house, but by Vanillaware.
 

 

Sega has formed a new subsidiary for Atlus, called Sega Dream Corporation.  Sega has noted that this name may change in the future, however.  Index, as you may recall, filed for "civil rehabilitation" back in June.  This is the Japanese equivalent to filing for bankruptcy, so there was no doubt that Atlus' days were numbered under Index.  The deal is set to be completed by November 1st, for approximately 14 billion yen or 141 million dollars.

I can only hope that under Sega, we still get some of these great Japanese titles in the west, as Sega has a real aversion to localizing anything that doesn't sell incredibly well here.  Yakuza 4 did not sell as well as Sega had anticipated, and as a result we are being punished by not getting Yakuza 5 over here.  I fear the same tactic may be used on us for the Persona series, but at this point only time will tell.
 

Mike Patuleia, NoobFeed (@Suburban_Hell)