Sega and Atlus officially merged back in September and according to Naoya Tsurumi, Sega Sammy’s Chief Operating Officer, the melding of the two companies has gone swimmingly.
Speaking to Famitsu Magazine (via Siliconera), Tsurumi stated that Atlus will continue to exist as a separate publishing label and that the developers under the Atlus brand will operate independently of Sega, just as they do now. Tsurumi also revealed that Atlus has been given access to Sega’s “dormant” franchises and is free to use them to build new games if they so choose:
Famitsu: It must be reassuring to have added a group capable of making great RPG titles.
Tsurumi: While we have no intention of forcing this, we’d definitely love to have them utilize any of Sega’s dormant IPs.
Tsurumi didn’t specify which franchises he considered “dormant,” but this might be good news for fans of long-forgetten franchises like Space Channel 5, Shenmue, Jet Set Radio (all three of which last saw new entries in 2002), and many others.
