Atlus CEO Naoto Hiraoka along with representative director and president Yukio Sugino recently mentioned that they have a few new titles in the works. In this week’s issue of Famitsu magazine, they also talked about the benefits of being a part of Sega.
Famitsu asks the two to share their thoughts about the new generation of consoles with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Regarding current generation consoles, Hiraoka says, “As console game makers, of course we won’t just avoid them. We’ll definitely be making an effort on that front.”
“Sega released Yakuza at the PlayStation 4’s launch, so they have some know-how when it comes to making software for the current generation consoles, which I believe we can share as needed,” says Sugino.
He continues, “Compared to Atlus, Sega are on a much bigger scale [as developers], and our respective know-how is completely different. They’re much more advanced than us when it comes to tools and middleware.”
Sugino also explains that if you look at the bigger picture, the Sega Sammy group has various small companies within it, all with their own expertise; so if Atlus felt the need to get something done a certain way, they could always ask Sega Sammy.
Famitsu points out that they’ve heard that both companies [Sega and Atlus] seem to be quite happy with one another, and that it looks like we can expect a lot more from them and their synergy together, in the future.
Hiraoka replies, “That’s right. The other day, we held a briefing session with Sugino and myself on Atlus’ side, with [Yakuza producer, Sega CCO Toshiro] Nagoshi and others from Sega to discuss our title line-up for the next three years, where we talked about things such as, ‘Ah, with that kind of lineup, we can do this and that.’”
Sugino concludes the talk by explaining that even if two companies are aware of what they’re working on and when it will be announced to the public, the timing for joint projects and such is often difficult.
However, he continues, by knowing what both are working on well ahead of time, it makes it much easier for such collaborations to be possible. So if we are to see future collaborative projects between Sega and Atlus, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see this happen in about three years’ time.
