The executive director of the Yakuza adventure franchise Toshihiro Nagoshi said that in the past he tried to interest Nintendo and Microsoft in his project. As a result, he was rejected by both companies, which is why the Yakuza series was released only on Sony PlayStation consoles for 8 years.
“I haven’t told anyone this before, but even before the game was released on PlayStation, I introduced it to Microsoft and Nintendo. At that time, they replied, “No, we don’t need that.” Now they say, “We want this game!”. They didn’t understand why I created it that way,” Nagosi admitted in an interview with Edge magazine.
According to Toshihiro Nagoshi, he initially rejected the idea of developing Yakuza for the international market in order not to compete with Western studios. Instead, he decided to focus on the Japanese male audience. Despite the specifics, the series has become known far beyond Japan.
The possible publication of Yakuza games on Xbox One last month was announced by the producer of the Yakuza franchise Daisuke Sato (Daisuke Sato). He told the French edition of Gameblog about it. At the same time, Yakuza is unlikely to appear on the Nintendo Switch. According to Sato, Sega had a disastrous experience with the release of the reissue of parts 1 and 2 on the Nintendo Wii, and the company does not want to repeat these mistakes.
Yakuza is an action adventure series developed by Amusement Vision studio and published by Sega. In 2017, Sega reported 10.5 million copies of Yakuza franchise games sold.
Also on the topic:
- Bloomberg: laws against Yakuza have become an obstacle for esports in Japan
- Sega revealed sales of the leading game series
Source: Video Gamer