NIS America has decided to cut their alliance with Persona developer Atlus and stop publishing their games in Europe. Atlus will also stop publishing NIS games in the U.S. as a result.
“Atlus became very picky about selecting the European publishing partner after it was bought by Sega,” said NISA Managing Director Takuro Yamashita to MCV. “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.”
The partnership was terminated 10 days ago, but PR manager for Atlus/Sega of America, John Hardin, has confirmed on twitter that the release of Odin Sphere Leifthrasir in Europe on June 24 is unaffected. Although Atlus is now a part of Sega, their European division is a separate entity from the American branch with it’s own set of products. SOE has only helped Atlus publish Persona 4 Arena Ultimax in the past and there is currently no distribution plan for Persona 5 in the region.
