Metaphor: ReFantazio is coming to PS5, of course, because Atlus would be absolutely crazy to exclude the platform on which the majority of its fan base exists. However, the SEGA subsidiary would rather you not know about it. After releasing another trailer at Gamescom2024 This week – seriously, maybe it’s time not to give away the title – any mention of Sony’s system was avoided.
On the official Atlus channel the video title for the new trailer only mentions Xbox Series X|S and PC, and the clip itself is marked with Microsoft bumpers. The video description makes no mention of the PS5 version, and the same goes for SEGA’s channel.
In addition, not a single one of the estimated 10,000 trailers of Metaphor: ReFantazio was uploaded to the PlayStation channel. And it was only mentioned once previously in the PS blog.
It’s not exactly unusual for platform holders to enter into marketing agreements with certain titles. We’ve seen Sony do the same for countless titles over the years. But we’ve never seen a title that’s been kept so secret. Xbox, for example, also has a marketing agreement with Star Wars Outlaws, but that doesn’t stop PlayStation from posting about it and releasing its trailers.
It’s clear that Microsoft wants to associate the release with its system, perhaps to combat Sony’s dominance in Japanese games and JRPGs. But in this case, we think it’s having a negative impact. The latest trailer has just 16,000 views on the official Xbox channel at the time of writing, and not much more on the Atlus page. You can be sure that it would get over 100,000 views if it were promoted to the PS5’s much larger audience.
