"We understand many Persona fans would love to see a PC version"
Does Atlus' attack on Persona 5 PC emulation reveal desire for official port?
Persona 5 is a wonderful PlayStation 4 and PS3 game but it is not available on PC. You can play it on PC, however, via emulation. Well, you could.
The RPCS3 emulator was yesterday hit by a legal threat from Atlus, maker of the game. More specifically, it was RPC3 maker Nekotekina whose Patreon page was hit by the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown request, threatening the whole operation.
After a bit of to and fro-ing, with Patreon itself involved, the issue boiled down to RPCS3 showing others how to remove DRM from Persona 5, which is naughty so the concerns are fair enough. And as a result, the RPCS3 account on Reddit said all mention of Persona 5 emulation had been removed from Patreon.
But what is really baking people's noodle is why Atlus jumped so hard upon the RPCS3 emulation in the first place, unless, well, is Atlus planning a PC version of Persona 5 itself? Some of Atlus' comments could be interpreted that way.
Here's Atlus' emulation statement:
"We believe that our fans best experience our titles (like Persona 5) on the actual platforms for which they are developed. We don't want their first experiences to be framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen."
This part is the pertinent bit: "We understand that many Persona fans would love to see a PC version. And while we don't have anything to announce today, we are listening! For now, the best way to experience Persona 5 is on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3."
Curious.
The statement continued:
"We appreciate the awareness generated by the emulation community for Persona 5 and know that it is a fantastic example of how much people are loving our game. We want to keep bringing you titles like Persona 5. Unfortunately, when our content is illegally circumvented and potentially made available for free, in a format we do not think delivers the experience and quality we intend, it undermines our ability to do so by diverting potential support from new audiences."
Diverting potential support from new audiences, eh? More curious still.
Persona 5 arrived in March this year and was ruddy marvellous. "Beautiful, badass and audacious," Cassandra Khaw wrote in her Persona 5 review, "Persona 5 is going to steal your heart."