Lots of good ideas that for the most part were not well put together. Ohwell!

Fond memories of Ogre Battle on the good ole SuperNES come to mind at the mention of Atlus.....

Hopefully they will pull through.

Arlus is not dead yet, I've read articles about Index being bankrupt since last week. Apparently they are actually profitable and other segments of the company are what sucked money.

If not well shit, that would be terrible since Atlus makes the best 3ds titles (Etrian, SMT) and I was looking forward to wasting my money on SMT4 and the Etrian 1 remake.

Atlus Japan is apparently up for sale. Famitsu published a survey asking who should buy them. It was pulled down a few hours later.

People were suggesting that SEGA should buy them. And hoping that neither Nintendo, Sony, or Square Enix do. I'd like to see them go to someone who isn't likely to enforce regional blocks. But that's unlikely.

Atlus is certainly one of the last names I'd hope to see go, love a lot of titles publisher by them.

Well...that sucks. Last game I played from them was Persona 4 Golden and it's certainly one of my games of the year. They're without a doubt one of the JRPG heavies and it would be a shame to see them fail.

Yet another example of business greed encroaching upon creativity... Agreed. I think Sega would actually be a good choice, even if they have rather neglected their Japanese roots in recent years in favour of a more westernised approach. Best game from Sega in recent years has actually been Resonance of Fate, ironic from a dev/publisher whose main contribution to the world of JRPGs has been Phantasy Star and Skies of Arcadia.

Sega seem to be slowly but surely pulling away from Japan. They don't exactly publish here any more (the new Sonic, for example, will be published by Nintendo here, not Sega). So if they acquire Atlus it could go either way =S.

Atlus will be fine. As for who will buy them? That's a good question. All of the aforementioned companies (Nintendo, Sony and Square-Enix) are currently bleeding heavily, so purchasing a studio just like that might not be the best financial incentive, especially one as Atlus who is making a lot of niche games.

Well, I was actually considering buying a 3DS because of the upcoming PAL release of Soul Hackers and also SMT IV, which look to be very much "hardcore" dungeon crawlers.

But I guess if they they get cancelled that's that.

They are not cancelled.

"If they get cancelled"

Well, I sure hope they don't buy them. One of the reasons JRPGs get a bad rep in the west is that the mainstream audiences tend to equate the entire genre with the works of Square Enix, so after a few of their releases turn out to be less than stellar people see doom for the entire genre. In the last few years Atlus has been receiving more attention, so I'd hate to see things revert back to the SE-centric vision of the past.

Yes, especially that new SE management is apparently enamored with mobile-phone games. Nintendo would be okay seeing as Atlus's latest offerings have been 3DS exclusives.

bansama: I don't suppose you know, but what do you rate the chances of Atlus becoming independent again?