Sega parent company to acquire Japanese developer Atlus

Sega’s parent company, Sega Sammy, has announced that it is acquiring Index Corporation for $140 million. This is important because Index is the holding company for one of the most popular Japanese game developers, Atlus, which is responsible for many off-beat games such as the Shin Megami Tensei series and Catherine.

Sega supposedly hopes to “achieve steady flows of revenue” with the acquisition, since many of Atlus’ games have been critically acclaimed and have done well commercially, albeit not as good as blockbuster titles such as Call of Duty.

One of Atlus’ most popular games was a swan song to the PlayStation 2

Soon after, President and CEO of Atlus’ holding company Naoto Hiraoka released a statement which said that business at the company will go on as usual. He also apologised for the worry that the troubles Atlus has been through in recent times cost for the studio’s fans.

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“Atlus has consistently received support and praise from our faithful and our respected customers, and made great progress in recent years,” said Hiraoka “So the recent incident must have surprised and worried all of you dearly. For that, I would like to express my deepest apologies.”

“We have nurtured a great relationship with Sega Inc. for a long time, especially concerning our consumer games business in Japan,” he continued.

Apparently, Sega will allow Atlus to keep making its offbeat games which would typically be hard-pressed to find publishers and funding. Game development at Atlus will go on as usual, and with any luck, we might see a Persona 5 some day. Thanks to the acquisition, it is also possible that more of Atlus’ games get to see releases outside of Japan.