@Catolf: If you bothered to read my original point as to of WHY it's silly you may understand why I said that though.
Persona 3 and 4 came out after the 360 was launched and when the Gamecube was dying (besides Nintendo hating third parties at that time) and around the launch of the Wii, plus, they're M rated games so Nintendo probably wouldn't want them/take them anyway. It could not have been on either of those consoles. It wasn't a pure choice of preference it was also a choice that was made out of a sheer lack of anything else to put it on. P1 and P2 (and P2-2) came out on the PS1 and, really, the only other console at the time was the N64, which the persona games never would have ended up on anyway because they were M rated games, not to mention that you didn't see much multiplatform action back then because of the fact that designing for the N64 was different than designing for the PS1, cart vs disk, two different controller schemes, different save systems, so on. The handhelds were PSP vs DS, which, again, would be developing two very different versions of the game.
They haven't leaned Persona towards Sony out of pure favoritism, they've leaned that way because it's really been the only option up to this point. Now the 360 is also a viable platform, especially in territories outside of Japan.
You also say that the Persona games didn't have the big draw of relationships? I disagree. The Persona games OOZE with relationships. Not sexual relationships, but relationships. And RPGs may not do great on the 360, but how many GOOD rpgs that have actually received much attention and are known quantities have launched on the 360? Plus, I could argue that block climbing games don't really do well on any platform that isn't a handheld. Catherine got pushed, and hard, and it paid off. If Catherine hadn't received as much attention as it had and gotten as much marketing as it had, it probably wouldn't have sold as well as it did.
It's also not any bigger of a gamble than what Catherine was. If anything, Catherine probably was the bigger gamble. It was an unknown property that really to the general market only had the selling point of "sexy anime lady." That's a really big risk in all territories outside of Japan, especially when your gameplay boils down to block climbing puzzles and cutscenes with a story that makes relatively little sense throughout most of it. Compare that to the Persona franchise which is better known now than it has been at any time previously in its existence, has ran 1-4, has released all but one Persona game again on a handheld, and is getting a fighting game to go with it (a fighting game that will be for the 360 and the PS3.)
Do you think it would pay off to expose even MORE people to your franchise via a fighting game that's multiplatform and then release the next proper game in the series and go "haha! just kidding, now that you're invested, come over to the PS3?" Or do you think it would be a better move to expose both PS3 and 360 owners to the franchise through a new fighting game and then go "hey, if you think maybe you'd like to see some more stuff in the same universe but an RPG, check out our new RPG that's out and is multiplatform"?
We also don't know what P5 is going to be, saying that it will only be a straight up RPG is selling it, and its predecessors in the series short. P3 and P4 were both a mix of social sim and rpg. If it was just pure straight up RPG people probably wouldn't be behind it as they are. It's also not as big of a gamble when you look at how 360 sales of Catherine have done for them in the US. Plus how minimal the cost is to develop it for both consoles from the ground up (as opposed to building it for just the 360 or just the PS3 and then having to port it over, potentially at a later date.) Because, really, if designing with both consoles in mind from the start was such a huge gamble and so costly both in budget and time, almost no game would be multiplatform because it would just be too dangerous outside of the big blockbuster titles.
Atlus is a small company, yes, which is why it makes more sense for them to try and get their game exposed to as many different players as possible. Plus, it would work better in the long run for them (and for sony as well) if they launched it multiplatform and then, at a later date, released another version of the game, as they have been doing, for Vita only. Imagine how that would drive Vita sales if you suddenly had not ONLY PS3 owners who want to buy a Vita, but you hook 360 owners into it as well. It wouldn't be MASSIVE, but sales are sales, and it would undoubtedly get them some. For example. Let's say, in a very hypothetical situation, Persona 5 launches multiplatform. In the US it sells 100k copies on the 360. Then, some time later, maybe two years later, they release P5-the better version for the Vita. Let's say that of those 100k P5 sales on the 360, even only a quarter of them think that that's a pushing point for them because they loved P5 enough and there are enough other titles for the Vita now (INCLUDING P4) That's 25,000 Vita sales with 25,000 P4 and P5 Vita sales. As opposed to if it never launched on the 360 at all, and the majority of those 100k people are never exposed to P5, never buy it, and none of them ever look to the possibility of getting a Vita as a result. It's not as big of a gamble as you think it is to do multiplatform, especially in this day and age for two consoles that function the same, and the pay off could be huge for them while the penalty for being wrong is minimal at best.
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