SEGA's now legendary Yakuza/Like a Dragon series almost didn't happen, with the Sonic the Hedgehog publisher initially hesitant to produce something so outside of its family-friendly wheelhouse. That's according to series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, who said it was a struggle to get the first game off the ground.
In an interview with Weekly Ochiai (translated by Automaton, thanks IGN), Nagoshi revealed that SEGA "flat out rejected" multiple pitches in the early 2000s. It was only through persistence that the original Japanese criminal caper was given the go-ahead in the first place: "This mindset [of appealing to the masses] wasn't really leading to a solution, and I saw many game proposals gradually become watered down as producers bent over to change things the way management instructed them to."
Seeing the opportunity to do something different, Nagoshi said it took three attempts before he could finally convince SEGA management to give him a chance. However, he had to be "quite forceful"; even then, it wasn't approved through traditional routes. Elaborating, he explained: "After all, it was completely contrary to what I mentioned earlier about attracting the masses. Children wouldn't be able to play it, and it wasn't catered to women or overseas audiences. In this sense, there was no way for it to be approved without resistance."
Could you imagine a gaming landscape without the Dragon of Dojima? What about a world without Ichiban? Count your lucky stars in the comments section below.
Comments 15
@Khayl Was Sega management high lol? I mean House of The Dead clearly isn't family friendly yet was released before Yakuza. 🤡
I'm happy it got made, thanks Sega. It's my favorite franchise I've ever played.
Sega also split from relic a couple months ago, and relic just announced they're dropping company of heroes 3 console support.
Shame.., i don't know if i should feel bad at sega or relic, maybe if not for sega coh3 wouldnt even be on console.
Anyhow, too bad, was a lot of good updates, but still missing some from pc..
Now Yakuza became one of Sega most milkiest franchise along with Sonic and Persona that keep their financial afloat. Imagine if Sega doesn't green light Nagoshi proposal.
Also. Nagoshi said at the beggining of Yakuza 1 production, he spoke to all platform holders including Sony and MS about the prospect of the game. But only Sony who showed interest and believe that Yakuza has the potential to become a big IP. Hence why the series was PS exclusives for years, probably that's the way of Nagoshi repaid the trust from Sony who believed in his games.
https://segabits.com/blog/2011/08/24/nagoshi-reveals-why-yakuza-is-playstation-exclusive/
Reaching an young adult male demographic should be a no brainer, but at the same time, so many of that audience just play FIFA, Halo, GTA and CoD and never touch anything outside that.
Either way, while not perfect, SEGA in more than one way does take risks and I respect that.
I bet the surface similarities to Shenmue, so soon after it proved so very unprofitable, were a factor.
I'm happy we've now got the entire main series on PS4! 9 mainline games, plus Isshin and the Judgment games. And 3 Shenmue games too! Incredible!
Sega is my favorite video game company of all time but it's always been run by idiots. Good thing Nagoshi made the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series happen anyway.
Now we have access to almost all Like a Dragon games. What a time to be alive...
Wish SEGA would do an arcade collection similar to Atari 50 but with all the games emulated in the Yakuza games (and maybe a few more).
This... is old news. But now you know. 😅
@WiiWareWave You have to think of the time. This was after the Sammy merger and SEGA was shedding a lot to get back into profitability. Yakuza came across as kind of Shenmue which lost a lot of money, even if it later became a cult classic.
So, of course they thought it was risky. It's crazy he got them to budge. Must've made a great case in cost management.
If they rejected this, they probably rejected a lot of good ideas.
I still have my fingers crossed for a Dead Souls remaster/remake at some point soon. Even a straight port would be fine for me as the PS3 version still holds up today.
Oh man, just think of what we may have missed out on for games that never got past this kind of rejection, and then on the other hand, the ones that should have listened.
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