Atlus on Friday announced that its latest entry in the dungeon-crawling RPG series – Persona 5 – has crossed the 2 million sales mark worldwide. In September 2016, the title was launched for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, followed by a launch in Europe and America in April 2017.
Best-selling game in the series
Discussing the sales of the game, Atlus USA president and CEO Naoto Hiraoka said, “This has been an incredible year for our company, one that represents our ambitions for Japanese games in the west. We are in the middle of experiencing tremendous growth, both in the west and abroad, and the sales of Persona 5 represent a new level of expectation for fans of the genre.”
Further, the CEO noted that a title like this would have been considered a niche, but now the Persona 5 game is one of their more important titles.
“We look forward to delivering more incredible games to our fans next year,” the CEO said.
In April of this year, the company revealed that the game had sold 1.5 million units globally, and by August, the number was over 1.8 million.
Though the sales figure of the previous entries in the series are not available, estimates are that the Persona 5 sales have already overtaken the previous games in the series. According to Destructoid, the previous best-selling game in the series, Persona 4 Golden sold only about 1.25 million copies.
Rising popularity of Persona 5 game
Acknowledging the support of the fans, the publisher also released a special “thank you” note today, accompanied by a drawing from the character designer Shigenori Soejima.
“On behalf of everyone here at ATLUS USA we would like to thank everyone for their support,” read a tweet from the company.
The two million sales milestone is surely impressive for a game, which was caught in a controversy at launch date owing to the streaming disaster.
#Persona5 has sold over 2 million copies worldwide! On behalf of everyone here at ATLUS USA we would like to thank everyone for their support. Enjoy this drawing from Persona series Character Designer Shigenori Soejima. pic.twitter.com/HaCyoKI3Af
— Official ATLUS West (@Atlus_West) December 1, 2017
The role-playing game is even getting an anime next year, underlying the rising popularity of the game. The Persona 5-inspired television anime series by A-1 Pictures will be available next year. In Spring 2018, the series is also getting a Persona 5 Dancing Star Night rhythm game for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4.
Recently, the popular game was also nominated in four categories in The Game Awards 2017. Those categories were “Best Art Direction,” “Best Score/Music,” “Best Role Playing Game” and “Game of the Year.” On Thursday in the PlayStation Awards 2017, the game even won the “Users’ Choice Award.” Last year also, the game won “Gold Prize” and “Users’ Choice Prize Winner” in the PlayStation Awards 2016.
To push the popularity further, a new Ultimate Edition bundle of the game was launched in October for both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3. The bundle, which costs $125 on PS4 or $115 on PS3, includes the Persona 5 game and tons of downloadable content like the Skill Card Set, the original Japanese audio track, the Healing Item Set and an additional difficulty level.
Two other bundles were also introduced, the Costume Bundle, which offers all the DLC costume sets, and the Persona Bundle, which comes with the DLC Persona. The bundles cost $59.99 and $19.99 respectively for the PS4 and PS3.
