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Persona 5 Delayed Until April 4, But Japanese Audio Joins the Party
Bad news, there's a delay for Persona. Good news, Japanese voice overs will ship with the game.
News
by
Mike Williams,
11/16/2016.
Atlus announced today that Persona 5 will be launching with Japanese audio in the West. Players can pick up the entire Japanese voice track as free downloadable content for the game. That's a request many Western Persona fans have had and Atlus is finally delivering on.
Sometimes there has to be a little give and take though. With news of the Japanese audio also comes news of a delay for Persona 5. The game was planned for release on February 14, 2017, but players will have to wait a few months. Instead, Persona 5 will be launching on April 2, 2017.
"I know, I know - the wait has been agonizing, but the Japanese release of Persona 5 smashed all our expectations, and as a company, we decided that we owed our fans the very best effort to make Persona 5 our gold standard in localization," explained Atlus in its press release.
"Practically, this means redoubling our QA and localization efforts, even returning to the studio to record previously unvoiced lines. We don't want to rush this game, and in this case, it meant we needed to move the release back for the last time."
Persona 5 will now be launching for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 on April 5, 2017. Still worth the wait? (Of course it is.)
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Comments 16
There were zero good excuses for why this game wasn't released day and date to begin with with Japan. Atlus Japan thought it was a good decision to not let Atlus USA even see anything of the game until it hit Japan retail.
They think so little of the western market that it is nothing but an afterthought to them. Even though they make significantly more money in the west than they ever will domestically.
They should be rewarded with boycotts and nothing more.
This isn't the SNES/PS1 era, global launches and synchronized localization are expected. FFXV, The Last Guardian, those delays are more palatable because they're still global launches. Japan will have had the game for seven months before we see it and that's just shoddy planning on Atlus' part.
(And Dual Audio should never have been optional. Using that as the sugar to help this go down is foolish.)
Edit: And to reiterate, I'm excited for the game. I have been waiting years and another two months won't kill me. As I said, just disappointing.Edited November 2016 by admiralsnackbar
:(
While I wait for April to arrive, I'll be entertaining myself with Gravity Rush 2, Tales of Berseria, Yakuza 0, Nier: Automata, Nioh, and Mass Effect Andromeda. There's a very good chance Nier, Nioh and Mass Effect will be pushed, but even so, there's no shortage of stuff to play.Edited November 2016 by NateDizzy
Also, quite a few games don't do worldwide releases, especially larger RPGs, especially if they are fully dubbed. For instance it took the original Dragon Age Origins 2 years to come to Japan!
So, the question is as a smaller company, why would you bother to wait to release your game locally, when you've got it ready domestically and could push it out, why wouldn't you?
If EA annoucned they were delaying Mass Effect Andromeda because it's French localization needed more refinement, but the english version was ready to launch, how would you feel?
All that said, delays and non world wide same day releases suck. But, let's accept the practical reality here.
And JP voices is always a welcome addition for me.
Check out one of the recent PS4 RPGs you may have overlooked. Play some old or new (old) friends via remasters, PS2 on PS4, or a PS Now subscription. Heck, try out a new genre or two, see if you find a new game or game series to love.
Or if you're so desperate to play Persona 5, import it! Try playing a game in a language you don't understand. It'll be like an adventure! You might even learn some Japanese in the process. Or at least, how to search for translation FAQs.
There's tons of games out there, and boycotting one just 'cuz you're upset that it's not out in your language yet is a childish, petty, selfish thing to do. A boycott wouldn't tell Atlus that you want their games in a more timely fashion; it'd tell them you don't want their games AT ALL.
Smaller devs, sure, I understand. Smaller games or smaller devs don't have international offices specifically for this purpose. Most RPGs developers don't! But Atlus does.
Again, this is more annoying than anything. I agree with Miyamoto's sentiment that a late game is late, a bad game is bad. But that doesn't make Atlus beyond reproach.
(And would I be upset at EA for delaying Mass Effect? Sure! On the same level? No. Just like Japanese players don't care if the US version gets delayed, they've got their stuff already.)
Rhetorical question asked out of desperation!
:(
lol. I understand the disappointment, but have people forgotten that most JRPGs take about 6-8 months to localize? Strictly speaking, Atlus is actually within a decent timeframe. Everything we've heard about P5 points to it being a stupidly large game. Frankly, I was astounded they said it would be translated and ready to ship within 6 months.
Sure, Squeenix can do worldwide releases, but they have a bazillion resources to just throw at the problem.
Heck, Persona 3 took over a year from its initial release to see a US localization. People should be more grateful that they only have to wait about half that for a game that's much bigger and more complicated to localize.