After Sega acquired the video game development studio Atlus, the partnership between the studio and NIS America has officially been severed. The news of the partnership ending came through after NIS America president and CEO Takuro Yamashita after speakign with MCVUK.
According to Takuro Yamashita, the partnership officially ended over a week ago after Sega had finalized the acquisition of Atlus. The real issue seemed to be that Sega has made it difficult for NIS America to establish an equal partnership with Atlus within publishing titles in Europe.
“Atlus became very picky about selecting the European publishing partner after it was bought by Sega. It always cherry picked its EU publishing partner based on who offered the highest minimum guarantee on a title by title basis. I noticed that it was very difficult for NIS America to establish an equal partnership with Atlus.”
NIS America has brought over a number of great titles to the west from developers Atlus. These titles include Persona 4 Golden, Etrian Odyssey Untold 2: The Farnir Knight, and Persona Q.
Even though the partnership is no more, Takuro Yamashita has stated his gratitude towards Atlus as their video games greatly helped the expansion of NIS America in Europe.
For now, it’s unknown just who will pick up the publishing side of things for Atlus within the west, but it very well could be Atlus’s new owner, Sega. There is still one video game title set to release later this year with Atlus using publisher NIS America and that’s Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir which will be releasing for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita.
