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Sega's prestige JRPG label — the team that made Persona one of the biggest non-Final Fantasy JRPG franchises in the world.
Founded in 1986, Atlus made the Shin Megami Tensei series a cult favorite in the 1990s and 2000s before its Persona spin-off (especially Persona 3, 4, and 5) became a global phenomenon. Acquired by Sega in 2013 after parent company Index Corporation went bankrupt. Persona 5 (2016) sold 9M+ copies; the 2022-2023 multi-platform expansion (P3 Portable, P4 Golden, P5 Royal on Xbox/PC/Switch) ended Persona's PlayStation exclusivity. Metaphor: ReFantazio (2024) was Atlus's first new flagship JRPG IP in 25 years and a critical hit.
Example
Persona 5 Royal's Xbox launch in 2022 — after 25 years of Persona being PlayStation-only — was one of the most symbolically significant platform-exclusivity reversals of the decade. It reportedly helped Atlus's revenue grow ~50% in fiscal year 2023.
Why it matters
Atlus is the modern proof that a niche JRPG studio can become a global mainstream label without losing its design identity. Their multi-platform pivot also signaled that Japanese publishers were rethinking the unit economics of platform exclusivity.
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