Atlus demise

[Pretas]

It's hardly reassuring to see them in the hands of a company that canceled the PS3/360 version of Bayonetta 2, and has been in desperate financial straits for years. Hopefully Atlus is able to maintain roughly the same level of autonomy and creative freedom that they had under Index.

There's also the question of what's going to happen to Atlus USA. My guess is they will be absorbed into Sega of America's localization team, while Sega continues to use the Atlus USA brand for marketing certain games.

[Jonathan Ingram]

It's hardly reassuring to see them in the hands of a company that canceled the PS3/360 version of Bayonetta 2, and has been in desperate financial straits for years

This is very far from the truth. Sega has approximately $2 billion in cash(for comparison`s sake, Capcom has less than $160 million as of the recent financial report) and is in a very enviable position compared to most of the Japanese companies in the business. They`ve been on a sort of an acquisition spree lately having picked up Relic Studios and a bunch of IPs from the defunct THQ and now Atlus.

[ZellSF]

Also things that are far from the truth, Sega didn't cancel the PS3/360 versions of Bayonetta 2, they never existed and Sega beyond licensing the IP doesn't seem to have much involvement with it at all.

Atlus and Sega is a good fit. Atlus likes region locking games, Sega hates localizing games for English territories. What could possibly go wrong

[evil_ash_xero]

Sega always made me sad by not localizing VC III or 7th Dragon.

[Octopod]

I really don't understand why nintendo didn't make a grab for them. Surely 140 million is not much cash for nintendo. Well, hopefully things go on as before.

[Ed Oscuro]

Nintendo wouldn't buy them because Nintendo won't localize "too Japanese" things. They sat on the rights for the fourth Fatal Frame release (for the Wii).

For whatever reason, Atlus is able to make money hand over first on these kinds of games, but Nintendo can't, or won't bother.

[BryanM]

Well. This is certainly awful news.