Nagoshi's comments on Yakuza Zero in the newest Edge

[Trippled]

“What you see in the trailer is really how it was at the time – it’s not a parody,”

For example, the part in the trailer where people are waving ¥10,000 notes in the street to flag down a taxi really used to happen. I once saw a guy  in a drinking establishment flash open a suitcase full of money to impress the ladies. That’s the sort of time it was.”

“They’re both still young outlaws”

“Kiryu is the violent type and he likes to get his hands dirty, while Majima is earning a comfortable living and is quite well adjusted. He’s quite the opposite  of the Majima fans know today.”

“I’ve always wanted to make a Yakuza prequel,” Nagoshi says, “but after the first two games everyone wanted a third, and then a fourth, and the chance to return to the start of the story never came up. With next year being the tenth anniversary, it seemed like a good opportunity, especially since Yakuza 6 will require a lot more time to make.”

On classic Sega games in Yakuza Zero:

''Nagoshi promises more, and teases that we may even see Mega Drives, perhaps a nod to the console’s 1988 release.''

On making an incentive for gamers to pick up a PS4, by making it exclusive for that system.

“We considered making it for PS4 only, but while the graphics and performance would be better, fewer people would be able to play it,”

“It’s still too early in the PS4’s life to make an exclusive game for that system – and the same goes for Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s consoles.”

“That’s for Sony to figure out,” he laughs. “We don’t make hardware any more, so our focus is on making great games that will satisfy lots of gamers.”

On overseas publishing and western games

''Nagoshi hasn’t ruled out an English release either, but China is a huge potential market for Japanese game makers. Now that foreign game consoles are allowed to be sold in mainland China, a fresh market of almost 1.4 billion new consumers is hard to pass up. Despite this, the main audience for Nagoshi’s games remains Japan. The market has grown ever more insular, and the games that generated the biggest buzz at TGS were domestic. Nagoshi foresaw this trend and made the first Yakuza game to capitalise on it; he certainly doesn’t believe Japanese developers should chase global appeal. “If anything, I think overseas publishers should make more effort to create games that will sell in Japan,” he says. “Games from overseas are clearly high quality, but the ones that sell 300,000 or 500,000 copies in Japan are rare. They would be better off creating titles that are targeted towards Japan, and then cultivating a bigger market here for  the games they are currently releasing.”

And on Hero Bank

“The market for kids’ games is extremely difficult to crack, and publishers such as Bandai Namco and Level-5 are excellent in that regard,” says Nagoshi. “I think it’s important to attempt something difficult and to learn as you go until you create a hit, rather than to be put off. We’ve learned a lot already from Hero Bank, and I’m sure we’ll create even more IPs [that are] aimed at kids.”

[MadeManG74]

Interesting that Edge is doing a piece on a game that likely will never be translated into English?

[Trippled]

Interesting that Edge is doing a piece on a game that likely will never be translated into English?

I guess they have a good relationship with Nagoshi (he wrote a column on F-Zero GX back then)

[Draikin]

Nagoshi foresaw this trend and made the first Yakuza game to capitalise on it; he certainly doesn’t believe Japanese developers should chase global appeal. “If anything, I think overseas publishers should make more effort to create games that will sell in Japan,” he says. “Games from overseas are clearly high quality, but the ones that sell 300,000 or 500,000 copies in Japan are rare. They would be better off creating titles that are targeted towards Japan, and then cultivating a bigger market here for  the games they are currently releasing.”

Can't say I agree with Nagoshi here, and I don't see this happening anytime soon anyway. We also heard a very different story from him back when Team Yakuza was working on Binary Domain, which was targeted towards the western market. Perhaps the failure of that game explains his current view of the market.

[SuperSonicEX]

That is a dangerous mindset for him to have, especially since a lot of criticism towards Japanese developers during these recent years was that they weren't trying to reach global audience and came off as stagnate.  This seems in line with their less risk initiative, but will it help in the long run?

Binary Domain was a solid game and I was disappointed it bombed hard (which lead to where we are now), but from my perspective, the issue wouldn't have been so severe if there had been an actual push for the game's presence in the West.

[Team Andromeda]

We also heard a very different story from him back when Team Yakuza was working on Binary Domain, which was targeted towards the western market.

He said very different stuff before that and how the likes of Daytona USA , Super Monkeyball II were made with world wide appeal  . Nagoshi-san also contradict himself on many issues . Always  wanted to make Yakuza 0 but users asked for Part III Ect, I doubt many users asked for Kenzan straight after Yakuza II  for starters and failing that why not make Yakuza 0 instead of Yakuza Ishin or Dead souls . It just more like the Team have run out of ideas and like with films and games,  a easy way out is to make a prequel, rather than a direct sequel .


Also it's laughable to see Nagoshi-san  go on about the user base and how Western developers should do more for Japan. Looking over the 13 million plus PS4 users, the 8 million plus XBone One users (sales are in the West Nagoshi-san)   and why should Western developers make games for Japan ; A market that has shrunk massively over the years and now its handheld and mobile central . Its depressing that this guy who's so out of touch , is at the top of SEGA Japan  control for games . Its hardly any wonder SEGA Japan is in the mess its in for the consoles

[Mariano]

Do you have the link of that interview Trippled?

[ROJM]

 Its depressing that this guy who's so out of touch , i

The pot calling the kettle black..LOL!

[ROJM]

Can't say I agree with Nagoshi here, and I don't see this happening anytime soon anyway. We also heard a very different story from him back when Team Yakuza was working on Binary Domain, which was targeted towards the western market. Perhaps the failure of that game explains his current view of the market.

Nagoshi has been too immersed with japan ever since YAKUZA got big. Even BINARY DOMAIN was quite Japan focused. I no doubt had the studio hit big with BD as well and created more titles in that series as well as new titles..they would have had a Japan focus element in them too. Japanese culture doesn't appeal to westerners outside certain anime or martial arts elements like Ninjas and Samurai. And all they are interested in that regard is the fighting and not the idea of drama from Japan. But it does well in japan obviously for Sega. And his key word..China. Itr just sounds to me that Sega is going for China(yet again) and ignore the western market completly and leave that market for Sega west to make games for..which is what they're been doing for a while now.

[Team Andromeda]

The pot calling the kettle black..LOL!

No its just shows how out of touch he is. I'll give a classic example. Dead Rising III as sold more copies alone on the XBox One than any single Yakuza game you could care to mention and that's one game on the XBox One

[ROJM]

No its just shows how out of touch he is. I'll give a classic example. Dead Rising III as sold more copies alone on the XBox One than any single Yakuza game you could care to mention and that's one game on the XBox One

Yet capcom stated that their profits have been underperforming..so a lot good that did.LOL...Unlike YAKUZA and sega consumer divison posting profit year in year out...

[Team Andromeda]

Yet capcom stated that their profits have been underperforming..so a lot good that did.LOL...Unlike YAKUZA and sega consumer divison posting profit year in year out...

1) Capcom made and posted a profit . 2) Dead Rising 3 came out last year and was reflected in Capcom's earlier set of results

Xbox One exclusive Dead Rising 3 has sold 1.2m units, helping Capcom to a welcome boost in profits.

Microsoft has shipped 5m Xbox Ones, and while actual sales remain shrouded in mystery that still represents at attach rate of anything between 1-in-3 and 1-in-5, which is potentially very impressive.

Monster Hunter 4 was the publisher's star pupil, however, with sales of 4.1m units since its release in September – all of which makes it Capcom's sixth best selling title ever and bumps the series as a whole to over 28m unit sales.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen enjoyed “firm sales”, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Dual Destinies “basically achieved” targets and DuckTales: Remastered “over-performed”. Lost Planet 3, as expected, missed targets due to what Capcom describes as “increased competition”.

Capcom's overall sales for the year ending March 31st climbed nearly nine per cent to Y102.2bn with profits up 16 per cent at Y3.4bn.

Just shows you how out out of touch Nagoshi-san and SEGA Japan are . There is a massive market on the next gen and Dead Rising 3 on the XBox 1 sells better than any single copy of Yakuza ever made  fact .

[Happy Cat]

I don't understand why Nagoshi's statement makes him closed minded. This generation is already looking so much better then last generation because most Japanese developers seemed to have gone back to making Japanese style games. They tried making western style games last generation to appeal to westerners and failed big time. I mean there is nothing wrong appealing to a worldwide audience, but at the same time, I'm a huge fan of JP style games. There is no reason we can't have both style of games on consoles. Japanese developers should develop what they are best at making, rather then making me-too western games that aren't as good as the western games they are trying to imitate.

[Trippled]

I still say that the future for innovative and interresting games lies in smaller games (indie, kickstrater, downloadable)

Which is why the purchase of Atlus makes sense in an ideal world, but right now just seems wierd.

[Team Andromeda]

I don't understand why Nagoshi's statement makes him closed minded.

Developing a title on a single platform and a game that will never leave Japan . You can make a Japanese game , but if you make it multi Platform and give it worldwide lauch you can have a success on your hands as we see with games like Evil WithIn (which has japanese as you can get) or Dark Souls II .


There's no reason why SEGA Japan can't have a decent mobile division and also a great focus on the next gen , other that SEGA Sammy simply not wanting to take the risk