Sega’s Toshihiro Nagoshi, the key person behind the Yakuza series, mentioned how digital sales of past Yakuza Kiwami games have increased lately in Japan, meaning many of the newcomers attracted by Yakuza: Like a Dragon and its RPG battle system decided to try the previous games.
Toshihiro Nagoshi chatted about all that on the March 24 SegaNama stream, at around the 1:22:00 mark. He also mentioned Yakuza: Like a Dragon has the highest digital sales of the series, and how the game managed to grasp a new audience. Toshihiro Nagoshi shared similar comments a few weeks ago on another SegaNama, where he discussed Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Sakura Wars‘ sales in Japan,
Near the end of the same stream, Toshihiro Nagoshi was also asked by a fan: “Are there any characters in Yakuza you didn’t expect to become popular? Did the Yakuza fandom ever react to a certain character in a different way than your expectations?”
Nagoshi answered by explaining how Goro Majima is a very eccentric character so he never imagined he’d be this popular. In turn, because of his eccentricity, he did expect a reverse effect, with players liking him, but he’s surprised the Yakuza fandom loves Majima that much, and he’s really happy about it.
Nagoshi also explained making good, lovable characters is really difficult. If you try too much to make a character loved, it’ll have the opposite effect, so they never aimed at trying to make Majima this popular at the beginning.
Toshihiro Nagoshi also mentioned how many Yakuza: Like a Dragon players loved all of its characters, but how in the end, it’s all about making a good game, so then your characters are more easily liked. Many personalities already called Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 a masterpiece, including Fairy Tail’s Hiro Mashima.
All of this is pretty promising for the future of the Yakuza series. Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama recently shared some comments on future games. Toshihiro Nagoshi did too in other interviews we translated. If you’d like to get into the Yakuza series yourself, be sure to check out our startup guide.
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SegaNama are monthly streams featuring Sega’s Chief Creative Officer Toshihiro Nagoshi and MC Ayana Tsubaki. We’ve been covering these regularly on DualShockers. This month’s stream is included below.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon is already available since January 16 in Japan under the name Ryu Ga Gotoku 7 Hikari to Yami no Yukue. The PS4 exclusive is coming later in 2020 in the west. It’ll soon get a huge DLC in Japan, virtually free for a limited time.
The post Toshihiro Nagoshi on Yakuza Like a Dragon’s Sales, Majima’s Popularity by Iyane Agossah appeared first on DualShockers.