Where you hoping Persona 5, or any Persona game for that matter, could possibly release on PC? Unfortunately, this latest news indicates that that is less likely to happen now more than ever.
Atlus USA PR manager John Hardin fielded this question on Twitter directly, insisting to fans that the game would be coming this year, after recently releasing this statement. As for a PC release, Hardin made reference to an infinite improbability drive.
@Mankind132 @rioichiFIN @KindaFunnyVids depends…do you have ready access to an infinite improbability drive?
— John Hardin (@JohnLHardin) August 18, 2015
(For those who missed it, Hardin was alluding not to anything from Persona, but to a Macguffin/deus ex machina from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series).
Persona has always been a PlayStation series first before anything else, seeing its greatest prominence and success on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 itself remained a PlayStation 2 release well into the PlayStation 3’s lifespan in 2008. Of course, Persona as a whole is a spinoff from the Megami Tensei series, which dates as far back to 1987 on the Family Computer.
However, as much as time may have obscured this, a Persona game has appeared on PC before. In fact, this was the first Persona game, Revelations Persona. While the game originally released on the 1st PlayStation in 1996, it came to Windows 95 and 98 in Japan in 1999. Of course, Persona Q recently released on 3DS, but Atlus seems more interested in positioning that as a side series for Nintendo than a gateway to give Nintendo the same games.
John and Atlus may not be willing to elaborate why the mainline Persona games can’t be brought to Windows, or any system outside PlayStation, but they can’t stop us from speculating. I think money could have secretly changed hands to keep the series exclusive. However, it’s just as likely the game’s developers just don’t want to bring it outside PlayStation, in the same way they didn’t want to make a new game for over five years.
Why do you think Persona isn’t leaving PlayStation? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
Persona 5 will be published on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.