While we recently got a release date for both upcoming ports of Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden, questions still remained over how these titles will look once they hit their respective platforms. For example, ever since the release date was announced, fans have wondered whether these games will have native versions for PS5 and Xbox Series X. Now it looks like we finally have an answer, as Atlus has confirmed that the Xbox Series versions of the titles will be native.
According to Gematsu, Atlus revealed that the upcoming Xbox Series versions of both Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden will indeed be native after reaching out for answers, although it seems like it may not be the same case for the PS5. This means that PS5 owners will have to purchase the titles for PS4 and play them via the system’s backwards compatibility feature rather than play them as native PS5 titles.
As for why, there are a number of possibilities. The most likely is that making games native to both PS4 and PS5 is more of a hassle than with Xbox One and Xbox Series X, meaning Atlus probably decided the potential reward to get a native PS5 version sorted before release wasn’t worth the effort. It’s also possible that Xbox may have some kind of deal with Atlus considering a lot of the game’s marketing has been via Xbox, although that is just speculation.
Those are the two most sensible reasons, although not everything that Atlus does these days can be considered logical. For example, the company recently issued streaming guidelines for content creators planning to cover the Xbox and Switch release of Persona 5 Royal, asking streamers not to stream past a certain point in the game for fear of spoilers. Considering the game has been out on PS4 for nearly three years and there are thousands of video on YouTube of the ending, trying to stop spoilers now feels like a losing battle.
