The Persona franchise has sold more than 23.5 million units to date

Sega has also reported significant increases in the Sonic and Yakuza/Like a Dragon series.

As we have highlighted many times before, today's JRPG fans have a new series that has taken the genre by storm in both innovation and popularity beyond the borders of Japan. Persona, the Shin Megami Tensei spin-off franchise started off timidly in its early stages until taking off with Persona 3 and Persona 4, but didn't really catch on with the mainstream until the release of Persona 5 in 2026, that being the last titular game to date. Since then, we have seen a multitude of remakes, spin-off titles and definitive versions such as Persona 5 Royal, Persona 5 Strikers, the recent Perosna 3 Reload and even Persona 5 Tactica.

All of this has helped to further expand and strengthen the brand, and now Sega has released a quarterly report stating that the Persona franchise has sold more than 23.5 million copies worldwide. A milestone for the Japanese role-playing genre, and a clear sign that Sega is likely to commit much more resources to an expected sixth instalment of the Atlus games in development.

Although the earnings report is in Japanese, the charts also note that the Like a Dragon franchise, developed by RGG Studio, has also seen significant growth this year thanks to Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and probably also the recent Amazon Prime Video series, although it is too early to assess its impact. Sonic, on the other hand, has also seen a more sustained increase, although this report does not yet reflect the major release of Sonic X Shadow Generations, nor the more than certain surge in popularity of the series with the theatrical release of Sonic the Hedgedog 3, so it will be interesting to follow these two series closely in the next report as well.

The core team behind the Persona series has been working on Metaphor:ReFantazio, released last month, and we don't know whether or not the studio has Persona 6 in the works. But considering they've released three big games this year alone, it's possible we'll soon find out more about what they have in store for us - perhaps at The Game Awards?