Xbox Game Passwill soon get four more Atlus games, according to a newly surfaced rumor suggesting multiple mainline installments from theShin Megami Tenseifranchise will be added to Microsoft’s subscription service come spring. This claim dovetails with an early March report indicating thatSMT 5is coming to Xbox Game Pass.
Microsoft and Atlus allegedly struck another comprehensive publishing deal circa late 2022, which is when the first rumors thatclassicShin Megami Tenseigames are jumping ship to Xboxemerged. Prior to that, Atlus already broughtPersona 3 Portable,Persona 4Golden, andPersona 5 Royalto Xbox Game Pass. The studio’s multiplatform RPGSoul Hackers 2was also added to the Ultimate tier of the service on February 28.
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Several images posted to 4chan on March 18 appear to suggest thatSMT 3,SMT 4,SMT 4 Apocalypse, andSMT 5are now set to expand theXbox Game Passcatalog come spring. More specifically, the anonymous poster who leaked the alleged promo materials claimed the official confirmation is coming on May 6. Atlus recently announced aShin Megami Tensei30-year anniversary event that’s taking place in Yokohama, Japan, over a two-day period starting May 5. The only entirely new implication of the leak concernsSMT 4 Apocalypse, seeing how the aforementioned December 2022 report already claimed the other threeSMTgames are coming to Xbox Game Pass.
That notwithstanding, the supposed promo materials contained in the leak don’t appear to include any previously unseen character artwork, meaning the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and other platform logos at the bottom of one of the leaked images could have easily been edited in by anyone. And speaking of which, the lack of the PlayStation logo in the leaked image casts further doubt on the veracity of this rumor, even though Atlus does have an erratic track record when it comes to deciding on the platform targets for its games.
Be that as it may, the company’s multiplatform titles have never circumvented Sony’s consoles, not to mention that the 2013 Sega acquisition also started stabilizing Atlus’s overall platform strategy. Meaning that fourSMTremasters releasing on pretty much every modern system bar those from Sony wouldn’t be just unusual but unprecedented. The alleged timing of this announcement also wouldn’t help Microsoft’s ongoing PR campaign seeking to convince regulators thatlimiting PlayStation’s game library wouldn’t make sense for Xbox.
The fact thatSoul Hackers 2’sXbox Game Pass launch leakedweeks in advance and that hints of anSMT 5PC port date back to the September 2021 Nvidia GeForce leak don’t necessarily add credence to this newly surfaced rumor, either. Not least because combining credible reports with made-up claims is a common troll tactic, so this supposed leak should still be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.
