Persona Magazine Hits Japan Next Month

[Earnest Cavalli]

Persona Magazine Hits Japan Next Month

An upcoming fighting game, a handheld remake and now a monthly magazine; Atlus' Persona series is officially a big deal.

ASCII Media Works, a Japanese publishing group, will begin distributing the Persona magazine early next month. As for what exactly would go into the mag, Siliconera reports:

The first issue will include a 16-page feature on Persona 4 The Animation, including an interview with the director.

A regular column in the magazine will also flesh out the world, characters and game systems of the Persona series. Naturally, the magazine will also contain information on upcoming titles such as Persona 4: The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena and Persona 4: The Golden.

A Dengeki Online report translated by Anime News Network also reveals that the Persona 3 manga that was serialized in Dengeki Black Maoh magazine will be featured in the Persona Magazine as well. Additionally, a spin-off of the ongoing Persona 4 manga will be included in the magazine as well.

That's all well and good, but one wonders exactly how much content the publishers behind this thing can wring out of the series. I could see maybe six months worth of issues if they do in-depth profiles on every Persona game to date, totally blowout the upcoming Persona titles, reprint all the back material suitable for a print publication and maybe conscript a manga artist to create some original content, but then what?

The magazine based on World of Warcraft -- a game that is constantly changing and evolving enough to warrant a dedicated news outlet (not to mention several websites across the 'net) -- only made it to five issues before calling it quits [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113137-World-of-Warcraft-Official-Magazine-Ending-Its-Run]. What makes anyone think the comparatively static Persona series can generate enough tangentially-related text to warrant a monthly magazine?

Or maybe this is one of those uniquely Japanese things that can only work when applied to a natively Japanese property aimed at Japanese fans within Japan. Like Robotech or Transformers.

(Yes nerds, I know. You're very perceptive. That was the joke.)

Source: @colettebennett [http://www.siliconera.com/2011/10/18/persona-gets-its-own-monthly-persona-magazine-in-japan/]

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[Truly-A-Lie]

I wish I could get it. Hopefully there'll be a site dedicated to translating the info from this magazine into English, as I must know any information on P4: Mayonaka Arena or The Golden as soon as possible.

 

[ckam]

Well, I guess if it was ATLUS MAGAZINE, then it could work. But a magazine series focused on just four games and four remakes... Well, that's not enough material to last the year.

 

[Therumancer]

My interest is minimal unless it's coming to the US, or Atlus is planning on moving up their schedule to get SMT related stuff to the US.

... which incidently links into my thinking, Persona is part of the SMT series which has been going on for a LONG time and has a lot of lore behind it and some wierd interconnections. If the name "Persona" is actually just the title and it's instead related to the entire brand name which includes tons of games, including many which never made it to the US... well that could be differant.

According to some of the rumors I heard, "World Of Warcraft" magazine failed in part because Blizzard's WoW developers didn't want to be required to have to out information to the magazine and then be held to what the magazine was going to say. To quote Blizzard in the process of POing their fans "We make games, not promises". If they charge money for a magazine that is an "insider source" and it winds up meaning nothing, well that can cause some problems, the least of which is simply that nobody is going to buy it.

This is to say nothing of the compeititve aspects of the game, and there was apparently some concerns among members of some of the biggest and meanest guilds that if a lot of information was revealed in an easy to understand format, it would hurt their position by generating more competition. There is a lot of debate about builds for example, but a source that actually proves officially that something dominates in an aspect of the game, backed by the devs, well that means everyone will do it and those who figured it out won't be quite as special any more.

This is to say nothing of the mod aspects, which would provide a lot of fuel for it. Probably 80% of high end play in WoW comes down to your mods, and how well you use them. There are well known mods from sources like Curse, and other less well known mods that flirt with what is defined as an exploit and are allowed only because they are theoretically availible to everyone. This kind of thing gets out there, and people start demanding your guild-specific mods that the lifeless programmer in the guild created as part of his WoW obsession... well, now you've got a problem since people are going to show up in the
obscure place you put them.

Stuff like that.... Persona doesn't have the same competitive component.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

We've all seen screenshots from Japanese video game magazines, right? Those things have, like, a paragraph of text per page at most. At that rate, I'm sure they can expand the magazine to about a year.

 

[antipunt]

I hope all this publicity eventually results in increased recognition for Persona 3. I'm well aware Persona 4 is more mainstream (thus all the attention), but was hoping the dark atmosphere of 3 (and maybe even 2) would draw additional fans to said counterparts

 

[Delusibeta]

You'll be surprised how long a magazine can peddle on without a large quantity of source content. Hell, Doctor Who Magazine has been continually published since 1979, and despite the TV show being canned ten years later the magazine survived until the revival in 2005 on spin-off books, audio dramas, comics, the film and recycling stuff.

 

[Fruitloops89]

Persona games are fun and all but where is a SMT mother ship title? Strange Journey was a blast and Kazuma Kaneko said it technically was SMT4, so why not make a SMT game that looks like the PS2 era games but has the demon system of Strange Journey? Come on Atlus let the Persona cow rest her teet and go back to a mother ship title.