Persona 5 Royal Players Upset Over Lack of PS5 Upgrade Option
Atlus announced a couple of new Persona remasters not long ago which included one for Persona 5 Royal that would finally give the game a dedicated PlayStation 5 version. That was naturally good news for those who'd been holding out for such an announcement before playing the game and would've been even better news for those who already had Persona 5 Royal on the PlayStation 4 given that some sort of upgrade path was expected. It seems the latter group will be let down, in this case, given that Atlus has since clarified it has no current plans to allow Persona 5 Royal owners to upgrade their PlayStation 4 versions to the PlayStation 5 release and instead is asking users to rebuy the game.
News of the lack of an upgrade option for the game was shared over on the official Japanese Persona site where an FAQ addressed a number of topics such as the differences between Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal as well as the different platform-specific versions of the game. One question asked what those who already own Persona 5 Royal should expect in terms of upgrades from the PlayStation 4 to the PlayStation 5.
The answer translated via Google Translate makes it clear that Atlus has no current plans to offer such an upgrade. The publisher did say that that it was "sorry" about that, however, and that it "would appreciate it" if people would simply buy the PlayStation 5 version of the game if that's where they want to play. The answer is going over about as well as expected.
Since the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles came out and upgrades like these started becoming topics of conversations, we've seen publishers navigate a couple of different routes. The most common one is to simply allow owners of the last-gen versions to upgrade to the newer ones for free (Xbox has been particularly good about that), and though there have been snags with games like Control and PlayStation's Horizon Forbidden West, the two main options are typically to make the upgrade free or to split the difference by charging a $10 upgrade fee or something along those lines. Either way, denying an upgrade path overall is generally frowned upon at this point, so it makes sense that people wouldn't be too pleased about it.
The new versions of Persona 5 Royal will release on October 21st, so expect to pay again for the PlayStation 5 version if you own it currently on the PlayStation 4 assuming Atlus doesn't reverse its decision prior to release.