Persona 4 Arena, published in the European region by Zen United, was recently take off the European PlayStation Network without an explanation. Now, it looks like we have an answer.
Speaking to a former member of Zen United, Siliconera discovered that the game had been pulled from PSN because Atlus had taken over the distribution of the game in European territories.
This is something I find personally very exciting. Conception II was the first game Atlus ever published in the PAL region. As they lack a European branch, they were unable to publish games in Europe, leaving it up to NISA, Zen United and other publishers. As a result, excellent Atlus game have greatly staggered release dates. Shin Megami Tensei IV still lacks even a release window. My personal favourite Etrian Odyssey series has had its fourth and fifth entries release six and seven months after their North American releases, respectively. Persona 4 Arena itself had nine months between the North American and European releases.
I think, now, you can see why this excites me. Between this and the recent publication of Conception II, I really think those of us in the PAL region are going to start seeing release dates for Atlus games much closer to the North American ones. I certainly hope so, anyway.
