Quote Originally Posted by Skyblade View Post

Not if you shift the second series into an entirely different genre. I don't think fighters we hold the majority of the fan base indefinitely. Especially since, story-wise, it's tiny compared to most of the full Persona games, even if it's very heavy on story for a fighter. People are going to wonder why the main plot gets stuffed into this expensive, minuscule format while the main series games will become more and more irrelevant. They'll want more Persona games, not more fighters.
That kind of depends, while I never believed the story would stick to the fighting genre, it has branched the series into new genres and the P4 Arena games are actually quite exceptional games. It would really come down to how important this story will be to the series as a whole.

I think Persona Q is a good example of what you meant. A separate game built entirely for fans, on a smaller scale and a smaller system, with the main series retaining its accessibility. But I also think that the main series is going to progress in the main games. I think that the references to previous titles and recurring characters will get larger and more prominent. Even if knowledge of the series lore isn't required to understand and enjoy the main plot of Persona 5, it will be required to see how the story affects the overall plot of the series, and probably to understand the optional dungeons and bosses.
I see the new series bleeding into the older games, but I don't see it being too heavily emphasized. For instance, I don't think we'll see another crossover like we did with Persona 1's cast being a part of P2's story. I can see Margaret or Theo showing up but their roles in the series permits this. I don't imagine we'll see any of the S.E.E.S. or Investigation Team members show up as anything more than a shout out to the older games, simply because their presence would detract from the new cast. This happens in lots of sequels that try to move away from the older casts, if an older cast member shows up, they have a tendency to overshadow the new cast members and fans will be expecting the whole plot to be a continuation of something previous instead of its own thing.

Basically, I imagine the P5 cast will find a new way the Shadows have entered the world, they will face a new god trying to interpret mankind's self destructive will and enact the apocalypse. Yet I feel it will all have its own spin and we probably won't see a real connection to Tartarus or the TV World until the series cast gets absorbed into the P4 Arena plot. Hell we still don't really know how the TV World and Tartarus are connected unless the game goes real old school and reveals the Malevolent Entity is Nyalarthotep, of which point the connection becomes much more obvious. Still, I don't think we'll meet the mystery man from the Kirijo group or the Malevolent Entity in P5. If they are in it, we probably wouldn't know until the next chapter of the P4 Arena plot gets revealed for whatever genre the writers want to do it on.