| Qays said: I'm not sure about the Wii having the potential to sell a Persona game in all markets. The jury is still very much out on how well quality third-party games in general, and third-party RPGs in particular, can sell on the system in the various markets. Here's what we know: No quality third-party RPGs have been released for the Wii in the west. Only one quality third-party RPG has been released for the Wii in Japan: Monster Hunter Tri. Its performance has been respectable in the absolute sense, but very lackluster compared to the performance of its PSP prequel. This can't be a very encouraging sign for Atlus vis à vis the potential sales of a Wii version of Persona 5. Compare to the impressive sales of the hyper-niche Demon's Souls on the PS3 in the US, and of the PSP re-releases of the PS2 Personas in Japan. A PSP Persona 5 is almost guaranteed to sell well, and a PS3 Persona 5 probably would sell well enough to make a profit (especially when you factor the fat exclusivity check Sony would cut Atlus into the bargain). A Wii P5 might sell OK. It might also sell next to nothing, at the cost of development money and Sony exclusivity money. Atlus is a fairly conservative company: my instinct is that they'll wait and see how games like Monster Hunter Tri and The Last Story do on the Wii before taking the plunge. |
I don't think a Wii Persona is at all likely, but there's a few things to consider...
1) Atlus has had some notable success on the platform, with Trauma Center: Second Opinion being Atlus USA's 3rd best selling title ever (only behind Persona 4 and Demon's Souls).
2) Atlus R&D1 has experience, resources and tools in place on Wii from the 3 Trauma series games. They've actually done more original Wii titles than PSP titles so far even.
3) Wii's also had Dragon Quest Swords, Monster Hunter G and the Tales of Symphonia spinoff move decent figures in Japan. DQS in fact has outsold all the PSP SMT games combined. MHG outsold the PS2 original, which is rather impressive for a 4 year old, full priced game that doesn't even work with the Wiimote.
4) Atlus likely doesn't have huge thresholds for success anyway. They highlighted SMT Strange Journey as a positive result in their last IR, and that game only sold ~130k after a series of stock/shipment issues.
5) Kaneko said they were doing a Wii SMT game 2 years ago. We've heard nothing since, and who knows what might've happened, but I don't think we can rule out Atlus looking at the platform entirely.
