Linky

It's happening, fatherfuckers. We are almost certainly going to get a release date here, and hopefully a trailer as well.

They've officially announced a live performance by the some of the folks who have done music for the series, and a thing by the hosts of Persona Stalker Club.

please let it come out early enough so I can play it on xmas break

My entire year has just been anticipation for this game.

Do you guys really think this'll land in 2015? If it does, I think we can safely say that this has been the best year for video games since 2012. Just fantastic stuff coming out all around.

Oh geez, I'll be up watching an interminably long show that I don't understand just for the ending. Again.

I'm so ready.

@oldirtybearon: They have been continually reaffirming that it will come out in NA in 2015. If they subtly announce a delayed release date at this show, basically the only substantial source of information for this game up to this point, I think that would be fucked up.

I get the fear but at this point I'm really surprised if it's not this year given how far they've gone out of their way to say this year.

Not in the EU, that's for sure.

@teddie: pffff, Europe? What's that?

Yeah Europe like that's a place.

Or it could be the most poorly timed Dancing all Night demo event ever.

I sorta love that I still barely know anything about this game and it's supposedly coming out this year. I'm not going to stay up at weird hours of the night to watch what is sure to be a troll-tastic stream from Atlus just for the release date. I'll leave that for the rest of you.

They can announce the release date all they want but until the game goes gold and I can download it onto my PS4 I don't believe them.

@bradbrains: It probably won't, to be honest. They have to translate it from Japanese to English, so it might take longer for it to reach us. (Here's hoping I'm wrong, though. :D)

I hope that EU gets it the same time as US. Atlus releases tend to lag behind, I ended up importing Catherine.

I'm almost sad that they won't be doing another one of those silly 24-hour countdowns interspersed with trivia and minor spin-off announcements; it's fun to check in to a Twitch stream and watch people lose their minds in anticipation.

@crunchyflies: they're probably localising the game simultaneously at this point. It's become an increasingly common practice for games with a large enough international audience. (edit: and to add to that I'm pretty sure Atlus has an in-house localisation team.)

I'll be surprised if this game actually makes it out in North America this year. Unless they're really getting into some kind of entirely new "let's have like zero non-Japanese marketing and not open up pre-orders at all prior to release" idea.

It really doesn't feel like it'll come out here this year, but Atlus seems to keep repeating that it will, even as recent as a couple of days ago. I just bought a PS4, so I'll be ready if it does!

@mancombseepgood: Not a hope. They've got to do French, Italian, German, & Spanish translations before we get it unfortunately.

@jeff: Like someone already said, Atlus is very very insistent that it's a 2015 JP/NA release. There would have to be some serious miscommunication between the HQ and whoever is talking with the press if this keeps getting confirmed the closer we are to December. I seriously doubt Atlus would be fine with lying so many times. They're close enough to the end of the year that they would know whether it's ready or not.

Is it still PS3 or is it on PS4? Would I be able to import it to the UK and play an American copy? Don't really want to wait for a Europe release. I didn't wait for Persona 4 Golden.

@aegon said:

At this point Atlus USA has to already have the game in their hands and well on their way to localizing, so I feel like there's no way they would not know how close they are to being done. (Within a reasonable range.) It does seem really weird that we're down to the last few months of the year and we still know hardly anything about the game beyond a few brief trailers though, but that's not entirely out of the ordinary for Atlus. You'd think something like Persona 5 would get a bigger marketing push than normal though. *shrug*

They announced a PS4 version like last year.

I mean, PS4 is region free, right? So if EU still gets a super shitty delay it won't be that hard to get a copy

I'm with Jeff, in that even if P5 were to come out in December, September-December is a preposterously short time to put out trailers and marketing and whatever for this game we've seen like 0.5% of so far.

There was a period of like 5 months between the Japanese and North American release of Catherine, which suggests that in recent memory, when it comes to Atlus' big budget console games, they still don't have a pipeline in place to put out a game simultaneously worldwide. It seems weird that now, of all times, they would suddenly get their act together for something that might, again, be a bit of a niche title because the console JRPG audience isn't what it used to be.

^ this. So much this.

Maybe they don't want to spend the money marketing the game when they pretty much just know the audience and MAYBE their word of mouth spreads it? Maybe they don't see the need for marketing to the audience because the audience is already sold? I can see this being how they are thinking.

@artisanbreads: Have you been intentionally ending all of your posts with a mysterious bullet point?

remember atlas doesn't have huge marketing budgets so there won't be some huge campaign

also this is kinda what they do. I remember like two 15 second trailers for persona 3 and persona 4 was kinda the same way (from what I was advertising wise)

I still don't believe NA 2015, but it happens with little to no marketing until it's almost released that would be amazing. Make everyone go in blind! It's the only way.

Has a "and it's out NOW!!!" announcement ever happened during TGS? That would be pretty incredible if that's how it goes but I guess are those kind of announcements even possible in today's world of leaks unless they go digital only?

"...and at long last, the popular Persona franchise is coming to the PC!"

It's almost been seven years since P4 came out! I can't wait! Hopefully, if it's not the end of this year, it's early next year.

It would seem ridiculous to think it'd be coming out here this year at this point, but the way they've consistently insisted it will even up to very recently would make it weird if it didn't. I'll definitely be curious to see what happens - any actual date will be welcome, but it better not be pushed to another vague release window instead of a firm date.

I wouldn't exactly call Catherine a big budget console game. That game was waaaay more niche than Persona, and relatively small scale for a console game. Also they managed a simultaneous release for Arena and close to simultaneous for Ultimax, which were much more recent. They weren't on the scale of an actual Persona RPG, but at least as much as Catherine.

Regardless of what the JRPG audience is like these days, this is absolutely Atlus' major flagpole title. Nothing else they've released in the last several years even come close to Persona's popularity these days. I do not doubt for a second they are putting as much manpower on the localization as they can manage. If this was Activision or EA or something a game like this might get put on the backburner, but niche JRPGs are Atlus' entire ball game. They don't have anything that's going to take a higher priority to this.

I think it's really weird that people are using marketing as a reason to doubt a 2015 release. Is everybody forgetting that this is an Atlus game? They aren't a major publisher; there isn't going to be some six month campaign with dozens of trailers a week. They'll put out a press release and a trailer or two that say 'Yo this game's coming out in, like, two months. Peace!' and then the game comes out. That's how they've always done it.

NOPE but looks cool... eh lets see if it does it again...

You can always get it digitally off the US PS Store. That's what I'm gonna do.

@aegon said:

I feeling it now!

it would be amazing to get it in 2015, but i'm just glad there's a new persona to look forward to. and unbelievably it has even more STYYYYYYYYYLE than the last.

Sega's TGS site says 2015 for P5.

Link

@aegon said:

Well shit. Do I stick with my current dp, or do I change to the lower left portrait here?

@adequatelyprepared: Uh...take your heart?

Man, just finished exams today - perfect timing to spend my next few days wasting my time watching a ridiculous Atlus troll stream to HOPEFULLY get a 2015 release date.

I'm so pumped.

There you go, folks - Summer 2016 release.

Just confirmed on the steam.

Game looks amazing though (they showed some more gameplay)

@adequatelyprepared: I have the same problem.

Well, we doing this thing or what? No idea if there are gonna be any more reveals, but it's a Persona countdown, so I have to attend.