Sega Sammy to acquire Atlus

Started by Decimosoma September 18th, 2013 1:38 PM
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Decimosoma

Free to dream, free to smile

Seen February 13th, 2014
Posted February 9th, 2014
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From IGN.com

SEGA parent company SEGA SAMMY Holdings will acquire Index Corporation, the parent company of developer and publisher Atlus, in November, according to separate reports from Bloomberg and Japan’s Nikkei.

The deal is allegedly worth ¥14 billion (USD$141m).

Index Corporation filed for civil rehabilitation (similar to bankruptcy protection in the United States) in June. In August reports emerged SEGA SAMMY was one of around 20 companies circling Index.

Founded in 1986, Atlus is known for the likes of the Megami Tensei series (and the spin-off Persona games), Etrian Odyssey, and Trauma Center. Atlus was acquired by Index Holdings in 2006.
Report from Nikkei Japan with a note:
The final deal will be concluded during November:

The Japanese news source reports that there have been substantial steps forward for Index Corporation (Atlus' parent company) to transfer management control over to Sega Sammy Holdings (Sega's parent company).P

This comes as Sega will formally purchase Index for 14 billion yen (US$141 million), and Index's game business is being reorganized under Sega.P

Last August, there were reports that Sega was among twenty companies bidding for Index, which was going through financial proceedings. This summer, Atlus said its brand would carry on and was "unaffected" by the financial troubles.
As you may you know Atlus is mainly popular because of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise and it's spin-off series Persona.

With this in the light now, how do you feel about this? Do you think Atlus will continue their work as it always been as if Index never left and that Atlus USA will continue to localize the games as if they don't feel any change at all?
Or do we need to expect the worse and be corned about how Sega will decide literally everything about the development of the current games such as the highlight titles Persona 5 and Shin Megami tensei 4 x Fire Emblem?
And that the localization of Atlus' games will be restricted because "it is not selling well" or whatever Sega's excuse usually use, as many people may know Sega (almost) never localize the games the people want and this habits of them could also be affected throughout Atlus' many franchises. Remember how Shin Megami Tensei spin-off Devil Summoner 2 barely made it through europa localization? This could lead putting a handful of games in a cage, sitting in Japan for the rest of their life time.

What do you think about Sega Sammy buying Atlus?
Discuss.

darkpokeball

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I don't really care, unless they actually do affect localization of games. Aksys helped localize 999 and VLR...they better localize ZE3!
And hopefully this doesn't have any negative drawbacks regarding development of games, like SMT X FE.
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Decimosoma

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Seen February 13th, 2014
Posted February 9th, 2014
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Well, I just found this, so I don't think there's anything to worry about. Who knows, this could be good news for those games that Sega likes to ignore- I know people have been begging Atlus to localize Valkyria Chronicles III, and Atlus DID localize a Shining game.
What a relief. I was actually expecting worse from Sega from past experience. I might give them another chance with this and see if they can shine again. Having Atlus USA localize some of Sega's games that never hit the western market would be awesome too.

Spoiler:
Now Sega should buy the Digimon franchise and I'll be one happy bear!


I'm looking forward to Atlus' 25th anniversary more than ever now. They might surprise us with a few Sega games that has never been released outside of Japan.

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I doubt there will be any major changes to localization operations. Gaming is popular worldwide, so as long as it remains profitable titles will be exported as they always have been. Even the JRPG market, while somewhat of a niche houses a loyal and vocal fanbase.

Quite often in deals like this the buying company must agree to allow the company it is purchasing to honor their previous contracts, as well as agree to any terms they set, as has been posted in that article. A similar agreement was made when Disney bought Marvel a few years ago, and we're not seeing Captain America and Thor breaking into song about it being a wonderful day for pie. Atlus has nothing to worry about. :7:
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Satoshi Ookami

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I don't think something radical happens now that Atlus is under Sega...
Atlus always was more like independent company than Index's part so I don't think anything changes.
They should finally start making dual audios now that they have new investor... won't happen, though...
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Even if there were big changes, they could only be for the better. SEGA is great when it comes to localizing games, and they only cancel games when they need to. I mean, they're not mid/late 2000 EA or Capcom, they do a good job when it comes to handling games and developers, especially when it comes to them bringing them to the West.