Japanese variety store chain Village Vanguard revealed a new series of Persona merchandise, due to release in February 2023, as part of an ongoing domestic marketing campaign for Persona 5 Royal Remastered. This marks yet another in the long list of merch collaborations for the popular franchise, which was previously treated to everything from vinyl soundtracks to a Persona 4 Golden fashion collection.
The Persona x Village Vanguard collection dovetails with the recent debut of Persona 5 Royal Remastered, which released globally on October 21. But the merchandise is also meant to promote the incoming Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden remasters, both of which are slated for launch on January 19, 2023.
The Village Vanguard product lineup consists of t-shirts, smartphone and character stands, can and name badges, keychains, clear file set tripacks, and a B2 tapestry, all of which are adorned with illustrations of the protagonists from the 3D Persona games, drawn exclusively for this collaboration. Prices of the newly announced merchandise range from the equivalent of $4 for a can badge to $40 for a piece of tapestry or a t-shirt. Some Village Vanguard outlets are already accepting pre-orders as of November 29, and the retailer expects to begin fulfilling orders by mid-February 2023.
Village Vanguard doesn’t offer international shipping, so apart from traveling to Japan, the only way to buy any of these items is to complete an order via a third-party service, which introduces more logistical uncertainty and an additional markup based on total shipment weight and sending distance. While neither Sega nor Atlus generally shy away from globally available Shin Megami Tensei merchandise, this particular collaboration is unlikely to ever make its way to the West. The fact that most of the art used for the newly unveiled wares features Persona protagonists dressed as Village Vanguard store clerks underlines the lineup’s Japan-only focus.
Retail industry watchers estimate that Persona 5 Royal Remastered sold over 60,000 copies in Japan within the first two weeks on the market, with the Switch version of the game accounting for the vast majority of that figure. According to public data from the Steam API, the PC port had a concurrent player peak of nearly 35,000 in late October, beating the all-time record of Persona 4 Golden by more than 5,000. For context, Persona 4 Golden hit half a million Steam sales in less than a month.
Between those figures and the fact that Game Pass still lists Persona 5 Royal Remastered as one of its top 15 most played titles five weeks into its launch, it’s fair to say that this third re-release of the 2016 JRPG is doing rather well. In the meantime, while Atlus confirmed Persona 6 is in development last year, there’s still no news on the sixth installment in the popular series.
Source: Persona Central
