Soul Hackers 2 had a 25 year gap since the first game which was obviously never on Xbox. Huge difference between this game and Persona/Yakuza. Get the older games first, put them in Game Pass and see if the franchise/series grows and thus far, it seems like both have. Persona 6 would probably be PS5/XS/PC only and having it on Xbox day one shouldn't affect optimization or other platforms. That's just bullshit unless they rush it out which would be completely on them.
We'll see how it goes.
I'd like to believe that, but whether Persona 6 is on Xbox Day 1 or not really comes down to how long the game has been in development versus whenever Sega/Atlus came to a conclusion that maybe moving the Xbox audience up in priority would be financially worth it. Because P5 was released in 2017, and I doubt the team waited until the start of this gen before beginning development on Persona 6.
As such it's quite possible that Sony may have locked down Persona 6 early on in the generation, even before the new systems released, as at least some timed console exclusive. Or just as likely, Atlus were developing Persona 6 before the gen launched but probably had no Xbox version in development. If there is an Xbox version in development, it would have only likely began within the year, and I think the common consensus is that Persona 6 will be releasing in 2023.
So considering that possibility, if we do get an Xbox version Day 1, it will mean that during the late phase of Persona 6 development which, similar to other games, is spent optimizing and polishing the experience before going gold and readying for release, that part will have been segmented some in order to ramp up priority for building and optimizing a build of the game for both Series X and Series S. Meaning the total resource allocation for optimization and end-development polish of the game on PlayStation 5 and/or PC platforms would have been trimmed so that some of those resources could go towards making and optimizing a build for Series X and S.
The main reason I believe that could end up being the case is because I find it very hard to believe Persona 6 development would have only began this year (which is the first year in which Sega/Atlus would even have user statistics for the Persona games on Xbox platforms to utilize in determining if it were financially viable to prioritize an Xbox build for a new Persona game in the first place), meaning Persona 6 development would have began years ago, when I strongly doubt Xbox was even a platform for consideration as the game was going into pre-production and then full production.
So a sudden timeline where we get a Xbox Series X & S version of Persona 6, Day 1 with PS5 and PC (and it might be a reach to say that even PC is getting it Day 1), considering the impact in development the game would have had anyway due to the COVID lockdowns through 2020 and most of 2021 (slowing development on whatever builds were currently in work at the time), very likely would mean end-polish and optimization resources for the PS5 and/or PC versions would have been divested towards hurriedly building a Series X/S version of the game and optimizing that. Considering, of course, that Persona 6 is coming in 2023, which seems quite likely as Sega/Atlus need something big for 2023 and it's not going to be another Sonic game, or Yakuza Ishin which is mainly a next-gen port of a PS3 game.
Something will have to fill that spot and Persona 6 is most likely to be the game. And I'm leaning on that being a PS5 launch exclusive most likely, with maybe a PC version within 6-12 months (similar to FF XVI), if there isn't one Day 1. I can't realistically see a Series X or S version of Persona 6 coming in 2023, but I can see one happening in 2024, a year after release. But this is all assuming Atlus haven't spent the last few months upwards a year or so rushing to do a Series X & S build for the game, though it wouldn't be the first time Sega's demanded such sudden dev shifts that'd have cascading effects on versions of the games already deep into development. We saw it sadly happen with Sonic '06 a long time ago.
You are right… Series outsold PS5 the last three quarters up to June 2022 (that means since October 2021)
But the difference was probably very small because Series couldn’t surpass PS5 lifetime sales and with just September + October PS5 is already ahead Series in 2022.
Yeah, they probably had a net difference within some margin of error over PS5 systems in those months where they led. Console sales in general tend to be lower in those months anyway outside of tax returns month, IIRC.
