Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance was officially announced during the Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, February 2024. The game features a number of quality of life improvements but more importantly: a brand new route that takes place in the same world. It’s an alternative story called «The Canon of Vengeance» which includes brand new characters and drastic changes to game scenario during the middle and late parts of the journey.
But the surprise didn’t end there…. this is the first non remaster mainline game releasing on all systems: Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Windows/Steam. This is true after they released the base (or vanilla) version only on Switch.
I’ll first explain how and why this may become a trend in the future for SMT, and then I’ll point out why this is a benefit for the franchise, the business, and, of course, the players.
Today, there is a clear, global trend where most studios release their games on multiple systems for the purpose of making their works playable and reachable for most people. Atlus already jumped into this bandwagon since they first decided to end the era of Persona as a Sony exclusive; and instead, they released P3P, P4G and P5R remasters on every platform. The market’s response was quick and straightforward: players from different systems wanted to play Persona games. A follow up to these events was the release of the remake called Persona 3 Reload on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Steam. The outcome was even better: the game sold 1 million of copies in its first week and it made it into the top 5 Steam games during February.
Nowadays, Microsoft owns the advertising copyrights for all new Persona games. There is no way to walk backwards: Persona is a franchise that will remain available on multiple systems. Soon we’ll see this is not only the case for Persona.
Back to SMT, let’s compare some facts: SMT V sold 1 million of copies after 6 months passed, the same milestone P3R reached in just a week. Popularity of SMT has never been nowhere near as Persona’s but it doesn’t help to keep the games in just a system. They are missing profit.
Having SMT as a Nintendo exclusive benefits no one except Nintendo themselves. Atlus and Sega are the legal owners of their products and they already know there is a potential market waiting for SMT on systems like PS5, Series X/S and PC. Of course they know what they are doing and the only thing they need is confirmation: to see responsive feedback from Vengeance’s sales on different platforms. If this happens (and I know it will), then it’s easy and straightforward to see SMT is not walking backwards either and the next games will be widely available for most people, on every system.
But.. why is this desired in the first place? Because:
It is very likely the game is going to easily outsell SMT V (vanilla) which means big profit for Sega and Atlus ($$$$).
I already said the franchise will reach thousands of more players, not contrained to switch owners only like in the past.
More importantly: because SMT deserves to run and to look great, just like Persona. It is a fact that SMT V has a lot of issues related to FPS drops, slow rendering, lack of detail and the list goes on. Not to mention the previous SMT IV and SMT IV Apocalypse were both harmed by a poor production, which held back all those amazing games potential. This could have been very different if they were all released on multi systems, but they were all contrained to Nintendo and its hardware limitations.
Solving V’s technical problems on Vengeance possibly means better media reception which in turn boosts the franchise’s reputation and popularity.
Conclusions
Releasing games on most systems is a global industry trend and Atlus already joined it recently.
There are high chances SMT V Vengeance is going to be a rule instead of an exception: the next SMT games may be released on every system and not just Nintendo. And this is a massive advantage to the business, the franchise and the players.
Consoles Universe 