Chief Creative Officer of SEGA and Yakuza producer Toshihiro Nagoshi dished on his long and illustrious career in a recent interview with EDGE Magazine.
For those of you that don’t know, many of you have him to thank for your childhood, as he was responsible for games such as Daytona USA, Super Monkey Ball, F-Zero GX, and of course, Yakuza.
In fact, he had quite a bit to say about some of those games, highlighting his experience with Nintendo on F-Zero GX as well as his decision to make Super Monkey Ball with practically no budget, time, or team.
Of the Yakuza series specifically, he said that it was “difficult for Japanese companies to compete with western games of high quality and big budgets (…) if we wanted to do it, it would have to be sports, or military, or fantasy (…) and it would need to release worldwide.”
“I thought it wasn’t right to follow that direction. So, first, I abandoned the idea of selling worldwide. Next, I decided I wouldn’t mind if female players didn’t like the game; then that no children were allowed.. When I decided all that, the only target left was the Japanese male.”
After trying to convince his bosses several times, Toshihiro Nagoshi stated that “Sega was struggling for cash and was very close to bankruptcy, so it merged with Sammy.”
“As soon as it happened, I went to see the new owner and presented the game to him, looking for his approval. Professionally, this was highly irregular and quite wrong. But I knew if the owner said ‘yes,’ it would be good for the entire company.”
He also revealed for the first time that Sony didn’t go for Yakuza initially, and that he’d “done presentations about it to Microsoft and Nintendo.”
“Back then they said ‘No we don’t want it.’ Now they say, ‘We want it!'”
Most surprising (or not) is exactly how Toshihiro Nagoshi comes up with ideas for Yakuza.
“it’s Japanese culture (…) but I did some of my own, yes. I like drinking. I also like women. I was having lots of fun in my life for a long time – whether to shake off my stress from work, or deepen the connection with my subordinates.”
Even Kazuma Kiryu’s name has a story, though he wouldn’t go into detail.
“I learned a lot of interesting stories from the people I met. And some surprising stories, and some sad ones. They became elements of Yakuza’s story. The name Kiryu is one of them (…). I often do that in my games – I use the name of a person I liked or who looked after me well. I still do that today.”
Lastly, Toshihiro Nagoshi made it clear he wants to bring new fans to the series.
“It will still be quite hardcore at the beginning, but I want the player to think ‘Oh this game seems really interesting’ – that’s what I’m aiming for this time. That goes for the technology too, though I don’t want to say more as it will spoil the fun. By introducing new and more current systems, I’d like to increase the number of players. And if I do that, I can re-introduce Kiryu-san to some new fans. That would be ideal.”
Though there is no official word of a new Yakuza (be patient, fellow Yakuza fans, we just got Yakuza 6: The Song of Life this year, and Yakuza Kiwami 2 is just around the corner,) it sounds like Toshihiro Nagoshi and his team might already be hard at work on the next entry in the series.
SOURCE: EDGE Magazine via ResetERA