In a new interview published by Weekly Ochiai magazine, Sega’s chief creative officer, Toshihiro Nagoshi, revealed that the first proposals on Yakuza they came rejected by the companywho evidently didn’t see the game’s potential, initially.
The first Yakuza was released on PS2 in 2005, but in truth the first ideas about the game had already emerged in previous years, and it was practically since the early 2000s that Nagoshi was designing the gameexcept that the first concepts were not well received.
According to what Nagoshi reported, Sega was not initially interested in Yakuza because it did not consider it a game capable of appealing to the mass or international audience, elements which at the time were fundamental to being able to have the green light on new franchises.
An unexpected success
This tendency to want to please everyone, both in terms of geographical areas and demographic groupshowever, tended to water down innovative ideas a bit and severely slowed down proposals from developers within Sega.
Not wanting to distort his vision, Nagoshi simply insisted, perhaps making some variations but without profound changes his idea about Yakuza, but it took years before finally receiving the green light, which however led to a distribution initially limited to the Japanese market only.
The proposal for the first Yakuza had to be put forward at least three times before it could receive the green light to continue development, and in the end Nagoshi was right, as the title was also appreciated abroad and became a long-running series.
As we’ve seen, the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise sold out in total over 21 million copieswith the latest chapter released, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which also received a warm reception from critics, demonstrating how a seemingly risky idea later proved successful.
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