Atlus has announced that the Persona series has slid past 22 million copies sold, releasing a special Persona 3 Reload trailer, "Promise", to celebrate. It's an impressive milestone, one which demonstrates how vast the gulf between the various players in the space remains; Final Fantasy, for comparison, has sold more than 180 million units across its admittedly much more extensive catalogue, and Dragon Quest racking up some 88 million, with both IP owned by Atlus competitor and OG RPG publisher, Square Enix.
The Persona series began on PS1 in 1996 with Revelations: Persona, a spinoff of Atlus' mainline Megami Tensei series, which would be played far more widely when it was released on PSP in 2009 as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. The next game would be split into two parts, released separately as Eternal Punishment and Innocent Sin, getting PSP rereleases of their own. As you might have noticed, Atlus loves to double dip and has been doing so since day one.
Things began to take shape with Persona 3 (and subsequent rereleases FES, Portable, Reload) evolving into the form we love and cherish today, nailing the split between personal life management and Dark Hour dungeon-delving. Persona 4 ratcheted things up a notch further, expanding upon the series' gameplay foundations and finding goodwill with Vita fans when the inevitable Golden remaster arrived exclusively on PlayStation's plucky handheld.
But Persona 5 is where Atlus truly broke into the mainstream, and the subsequent release of Royal and its various offshoots cemented the series as an RPG classic and one of the most visually impressive games ever made. Add to all that strong sales, incredible music, and a passionate fanbase, and we feel confident that the Persona series won't go away anytime soon.