Index Holdings, the new parent company of Shin Megami Tensei publisher Atlus, has released its latest U.S. division financial results, recording profits of 437 million yen ($5.39 million) for the fiscal year, up from a loss of ¥104 million ($1.2 million) in 2009.
Over the course of the financial year, which ended August 31 for the company, Index Holdings reported that Atlus USA made ¥3.299 billion ($40.7 million) in sales, up from ¥2.732 billion ($33.6 million) in 2009.
In the report the company apportions a great deal of this success to Demon's Souls, the PlayStation 3 sleeper hit developed by From Software and picked up for North American publishing by Atlus.
While Demon's Souls, an unforgiving action RPG, had a poor showing at the Tokyo Game Show ahead of its release, word of mouth support from players following its release and a favorable critical reception saw sales build steadily over the course of the year.
The news of Atlus' U.S. financial turnaround comes as the Japanese arm of the publisher announced a Japanese release date of February 17 for Catherine, the company's first PS3 and Xbox 360 HD title, which has been garnering attention for its unique style and seemingly mature themes.
While I love Demon's Souls, news like this clearly show how profit expectations vary wildly from company to company: according to VGChartz, Demon's Souls hasn't even broke the 1 million copies barrier - which for a number of studios/publishers would be a sign of utter failure.
800,000 copies is nothing to sniff at for a company like From Software. Maybe Rockstar or Infinity Ward or Bungie would see that as a failure, but that's >$30 million in revenue which is far more than that game cost to develop.
Atlus tends to run limited printing of the games they publish because they know their audience is pretty niche-y.
So for Demon's Souls to run a few more prints is pretty awesome for them! And they completely deserve it and all of the success that comes with Project Dark. Especially if the Collector's Edition comes with nipple clamps.
I hope Demon's Souls is the first in a long line of games that bring challenge back to gaming. By far the best console game this generation, and I'm glad Atlus found such success with it.
So for Demon's Souls to run a few more prints is pretty awesome for them! And they completely deserve it and all of the success that comes with Project Dark. Especially if the Collector's Edition comes with nipple clamps.