Interview: Possibility of Yakuza on Switch/Xbox One, Binary Domain 2, Yakuza Spinoffs, etc

sangreal said:

by making a deal for $xxx for a digital-only port for gamepass.

Phil talked about this on giantbomb @ e3

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That won't fix it.

So MS is going to throw money at every Japanese game? No.

These Japanese developers are going to willing let expensive games in development go on Game Pass day one? No. Especially when they can make bank selling on other consoles in their home region.


I don't think you understand the problem. The Japanese market doesn't care about Xbox thus Japanese developers don't. Some can be bought to make late ports but that doesn't solve the issue.

The solution would be getting Persona 6, Yakuza 7, etc on xbox same day as all platforms

Those games won't go to Game Pass day one. Japanese developers won't do that because they need to make money and quite frankly they already know they can make that money on PlayStation and Nintendo so why risk it?

They won't get satisfactory Japanese developer support until the Japanese market, the one Japanese developers mostly cater to outside of popular IPs in the west like FF, Until the Japanese market forces Japanese devs to care about Xbox

Chicken and the egg really. Idk if they can ever solve it.

Nintendo has a bit console right now that is getting good third party support and indies but even it still has holdouts like EA with anytbing not FIFA and Activision with COD, Take Two with RDR2. I imagine the situation plays out like this for Xbox and Japanese games. I mean heck, Square won't even make KH 1-2 for Xbox despite 3 coming

This also doesn't account for Japanese games selling worse on Xbox than PlayStation and Nintendo. Even if the games went to Game Pass and were talking about late ports here, that doesn't guarantee the Xbox base buys in to something they haven't been exposed too

rtv190 said:

Damn near every japanese developer both big and small is releasing Xbox One ports now and getting to either the top or damn near the top of the best sellers list, whereas last time Yakuza was released on a Nintendo system, it was estimated to have sold less than 10,000 copies in it's lifetime.

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You know you have a week argument when you have to use Wii U sales as a major point

rtv190 said:

holy fuck, i never thought i'd see the day.



Consider the following:

1. Nier:Automata, a "niche Xbox" game made it to #3 in the sale charts in it's first week despite being a digital only release that wasn't heavily advertised.
2. Monster Hunter World, another "niche Xbox game" was at the top of the sale charts both at retail during it's opening week and on XBL for 2? weeks straight despite Sony holding the marketing.
3. Damn near every japanese developer both big and small is releasing Xbox One ports now and getting to either the top or damn near the top of the best sellers list, whereas last time Yakuza was released on a Nintendo system, it was estimated to have sold less than 10,000 copies in it's lifetime.

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Not only less than 10,000, it sold less than 1,800 copies!

I'm pretty sure if they port Yakuza 0 or Kiwami 1 to the Switch it would sell poorly in Japan (better than the Wii U game, but still less than 10K or 15K) considering how old they are and that the series is not THAT big to make a lot of people to double dip , but maybe it can find succes in the west, similar to Disgaea 5 (another series that aside from a random port was never a thing on Nintendo consoles), who knows.

rtv190 said:

Consider the following:

1. Nier:Automata, a "niche Xbox" game made it to #3 in the sale charts in it's first week despite being a digital only release that wasn't heavily advertised.
2. Monster Hunter World, another "niche Xbox game" was at the top of the sale charts both at retail during it's opening week and on XBL for 2? weeks straight despite Sony holding the marketing.
3. Damn near every japanese developer both big and small is releasing Xbox One ports now and getting to either the top or damn near the top of the best sellers list, whereas last time Yakuza was released on a Nintendo system, it was estimated to have sold less than 10,000 copies in it's lifetime.

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This is disingenuous as all hell.

I assume it wasn't asked as the interview only pertained to Yakuza, but considering its pedigree if the Yakuza Studio wanted to make a splash on the Switch I'd rather them do a F-Zero GX sequel with multiplayer online racing and an expanded Yakuza ish single player with Captain Falcon knocking some thug heads together

What happen to the Xbox fans who used to say that japanese games were niche and non important?

PachaelD said:

I assume it wasn't asked as the interview only pertained to Yakuza, but considering its pedigree if the Yakuza Studio wanted to make a splash on the Switch I'd rather them do a F-Zero GX sequel with multiplayer online racing and an expanded Yakuza ish single player with Captain Falcon knocking some thug heads together

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This is brilliant. The Hokuto ga Gotoku treatment, but with F-Zero and Captain Falcon instead of Fist of the North Star and Kenshiro.

It's still baffling why Nintendo decided to ask Nagoshi to appear in the Switch reveal event when his team clearly has nothing for the platform.

Alfredo said:

This is brilliant. The Hokuto ga Gotoku treatment, but with F-Zero and Captain Falcon instead of Fist of the North Star and Kenshiro.

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That has so much potential. Plus it'd get me a Yakuza like game and a F Zero game on the Switch at the same time. And it'd have Captain Falcon singing Karaoke. Does that mean we'd get previous F Zero games as arcade games? And would the Falcon Punch be a Tiger Drop level counter move that is insanely broken? (this totally needs to happen...)

Mark H said:

It's still baffling why Nintendo decided to ask Nagoshi to appear in the Switch reveal event when his team clearly has nothing for the platform.

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He was at the Xbox One Reveal for Japan. I think he is the face Sega just throws out there.

Is Sato-san saying the Switch audience only buys first party games?

That and the younger audience on Switch is all I can really think of that differentiate between the two platforms.

I'm not sure why people are having a hard time on the Switch aspect. Yakuza 6 barely runs at an acceptable framerate, often dropping into the 20s, on the standard PS4. And Yakuza 0 runs at 60fps but with screen tearing on the standard PS4. I just don't see a path forward for the Yakuza series on the current Switch hardware unless they made significant graphical downgrades, and part of the charm of Yakuza games is the immersive, detailed environments.

eyeball_kid said:

I'm not sure why people are having a hard time on the Switch aspect. Yakuza 6 barely runs at an acceptable framerate, often dropping into the 20s, on the standard PS4. And Yakuza 0 runs at 60fps but with screen tearing on the standard PS4. I just don't see a path forward for the Yakuza series on the current Switch hardware unless they made significant graphical downgrades, and part of the charm of Yakuza games is the immersive, detailed environments.

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I don't think people are arguing about technical capabilities of the Switch. There are still plenty of Yakuza games that could be on the Switch, with the exception of the dragon engine titles.

Sato-San said -

"To be realistic towards what happened, Yakuza 1 & 2 for Wii U was a significant failure. But our goal is still to develop cross-platform as much as possible, and we know that it brings an extra audience, that it allows us to attract more people. That being said, when it comes to Switch, I am convinced that it would not be the ideal platform on which to develop Yakuza games. Maybe the public is not expecting that kind of game on Switch. They may be used to different games. It may not be the ideal platform. Regarding Xbox One, we could consider it, knowing that Xbox One users might be more likely to be interested in a game like Yakuza. That could be an option."

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Personally I disagree with that part. Unless he's saying the Switch audience largely buys first party games for the Switch, and something like Yakuza on PS4, because it would run better. I agree with that, but there's still a significant number of switch only users that would be interested in a Yakuza game.

arbok26 said:

I don't think people are arguing about technical capabilities of the Switch. There are still plenty of Yakuza games that could be on the Switch, with the exception of the dragon engine titles.

Sato-San said -


Personally I disagree with that part. Unless he's saying the Switch audience largely buys first party games for the Switch, and something like Yakuza on PS4, because it would run better. I agree with that, but there's still a significant number of switch only users that would be interested in a Yakuza game.

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I'm not sure what he meant there. I don't have any demographic breakdown of Switch users, but in Japan I've heard that it's primarily "older" men who buy Yakuza games. My hunch is that Switch popularity in Japan skews on the younger side, so he's probably speaking primarily about the domestic Japanese audience. He may not be well informed about the Switch audience abroad, but I think the west is still very much a secondary market for him. Let's keep in mind that it was only last year with Yakuza 0's breakout success in the west that our market suddenly became viable after years on life support. But obviously when speaking about the Xbox he's thinking about the west (because it's non-existent in Japan), so who knows.

I guess my original point was though that getting worked up about his comments is a bit of a waste of energy when it's not really technically feasible on Switch without major downgrades in the first place.

As dumb as the Wii U and Switch comparison sounds, it's really not that surprising considering their stance on Xbox as well.

Are the PS4 western numbers for Yakuza that abysmal that a simple port to the Xbox is not even worth doing? Technical issues aside, platform exclusivity in this day and age is really dumb.

Its a shame that the Wii U Yakuza was a major failure for them. But I personally don't think using thats a good reason to justify Switch being an inappropriate platform for future titles. Almost every third party title was met with abysmal sales on Wii U. Times are different now. I would argue that the Switch has a very different audience to the Wii U. Its not just the nintenfanbase anymore.

Dragon Engine games are likely impossible without a huge effort, Wolfenstein-2-esque porting endeavour, but I have to imagine all the games on the old engine would be possible. Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 1 were cross-gen games, so if they ran on the PS3 I have to imagine a 720p30 Switch port would be possible, and 3, 4 and 5 would surely be fairly easy to get up and running. I guess I can understand not wanting to start porting the series over now when they can only really do back catalogue games, but I feel like even a one-off port of just Yakuza 0 would still make some money.

I feel comparing the Switch on the failures of the Wii U isnt right. Theres a lot of games that have seen success on switch thanks to it being a whole different audience.
I remember seeing the Japanese commercials for Yakuza on Wii U and i was confused by who the target audience was. then again the ports never got localized so again, you can truly see it as a failure when it wasnt fully attempted.
Ive been hesitant on jumping into the fanchise, but because of its contant name drop on Easy Allies, thanks Huber, i want to give them a go around, so id gladly check out a Switch release.

Anti said:

What happen to the Xbox fans who used to say that japanese games were niche and non important?

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They got Playstations this gen to get the COD map packs first? Playstation... what a dudebro console.

See how that works both ways?

bonesawisready5 said:

That won't fix it.

So MS is going to throw money at every Japanese game? No.

These Japanese developers are going to willing let expensive games in development go on Game Pass day one? No. Especially when they can make bank selling on other consoles in their home region.


I don't think you understand the problem. The Japanese market doesn't care about Xbox thus Japanese developers don't. Some can be bought to make late ports but that doesn't solve the issue.

The solution would be getting Persona 6, Yakuza 7, etc on xbox same day as all platforms

Those games won't go to Game Pass day one. Japanese developers won't do that because they need to make money and quite frankly they already know they can make that money on PlayStation and Nintendo so why risk it?

They won't get satisfactory Japanese developer support until the Japanese market, the one Japanese developers mostly cater to outside of popular IPs in the west like FF, Until the Japanese market forces Japanese devs to care about Xbox

Chicken and the egg really. Idk if they can ever solve it.

Nintendo has a bit console right now that is getting good third party support and indies but even it still has holdouts like EA with anytbing not FIFA and Activision with COD, Take Two with RDR2. I imagine the situation plays out like this for Xbox and Japanese games. I mean heck, Square won't even make KH 1-2 for Xbox despite 3 coming

This also doesn't account for Japanese games selling worse on Xbox than PlayStation and Nintendo. Even if the games went to Game Pass and were talking about late ports here, that doesn't guarantee the Xbox base buys in to something they haven't been exposed too

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Games on gamepass are selling more not less.

Judging the performance of Yakuza on Nintendo platforms or any others based on a full priced, later port of a PS2 HD collection that released before on PS3 month ago, on was rather short sighted from SEGA.

Oh my fuck do it Yakuza collection cmon

pswii60 said:

So the box art is a lie

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The game was "Only on PlayStation" when it launched. A PC port was released 6 months later.

Thanks for sharing this OP. Glad to know they're interesting in bringing Yakuza to Xbox, that would certainly give more exposure to the series. Also... I would go absolutely crazy if a Binary Domain sequel was made, however I have to admit it's very unlikely :(

Knight613 said:

It happens to a ton of games really. Really doubt there was an exclusivity deal for Yakuza of all things.

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I remember Bioshock and Mass Effect used to have an "Only on 360" banner. At the time, these statements were true.

I really like the idea of more Yakuza's hitting Steam and Xbox, as I wanna be able to play my Yakuza collection easily ten years from now when I have a bit more time to do so, and I'm unsure of how dedicated to backwards compatibility Sony will be in the future. If they do commit to BC in the future, then I'm already set as I own all Yakuza games currently out in the US on PSN lol.

There is hope for Binary Domain 2?!?!?!?!?!?!

MEGATON

Game was a flop, but it is such a gem. I really really enjoyed it. It starts utterly generic, but soon transforms into a very good game.

Please do a Yakuza Dead Souls sequel, or a 60fps remaster or Kiwami style.

That game is more fun than Binary Domain, in my opinion.

They need to bring all Yakuza games to PS4 to start with so no one will miss any. Then they can talk about other platforms.

To be fair, I don't think Sato-san said that the Switch isn't a good fit for the Yakuza series because 1 & 2 HD failed on the Wii U. He mentionned the Wii U game only because I mentionned it in my question (I was only using it as an example of a Yakuza game being released on a non-Sony console).

He does seem to think that the Switch isn't a good fit for the Yakuza series. But for other reasons.

A mature, involving, violent game about the criminal underworld with a demanding engine seems like a perfect fit for Xbox. Sega, I much rather play these games on X, with both Shenmue 1+2 on the way it makes sense to bring over Yakuza. Do it!

bonesawisready5 said:

That won't fix it.

So MS is going to throw money at every Japanese game? No.

These Japanese developers are going to willing let expensive games in development go on Game Pass day one? No. Especially when they can make bank selling on other consoles in their home region.


I don't think you understand the problem. The Japanese market doesn't care about Xbox thus Japanese developers don't. Some can be bought to make late ports but that doesn't solve the issue.

The solution would be getting Persona 6, Yakuza 7, etc on xbox same day as all platforms

Those games won't go to Game Pass day one. Japanese developers won't do that because they need to make money and quite frankly they already know they can make that money on PlayStation and Nintendo so why risk it?

They won't get satisfactory Japanese developer support until the Japanese market, the one Japanese developers mostly cater to outside of popular IPs in the west like FF, Until the Japanese market forces Japanese devs to care about Xbox

Chicken and the egg really. Idk if they can ever solve it.

Nintendo has a bit console right now that is getting good third party support and indies but even it still has holdouts like EA with anytbing not FIFA and Activision with COD, Take Two with RDR2. I imagine the situation plays out like this for Xbox and Japanese games. I mean heck, Square won't even make KH 1-2 for Xbox despite 3 coming

This also doesn't account for Japanese games selling worse on Xbox than PlayStation and Nintendo. Even if the games went to Game Pass and were talking about late ports here, that doesn't guarantee the Xbox base buys in to something they haven't been exposed too

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That's not how Gamepass works. And you know nothing of the commercials, so you shouldn't be making things up. How do you know they 3rd parties arnt being compensated somehow ? Also Gamepass increases sales based on data.

Mark H said:

It's still baffling why Nintendo decided to ask Nagoshi to appear in the Switch reveal event when his team clearly has nothing for the platform.

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Nagoshi is Sega's CCO, not just the boss of the Yakuza team.

Romain said:

To be fair, I don't think Sato-san said that the Switch isn't a good fit for the Yakuza series because 1 & 2 HD failed on the Wii U. He mentionned the Wii U game only because I mentionned it in my question (I was only using it as an example of a Yakuza game being released on a non-Sony console).

He does seem to think that the Switch isn't a good fit for the Yakuza series. But for other reasons.

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Should have pushed for the other reasons :p

jbug617 said:

He was at the Xbox One Reveal for Japan. I think he is the face Sega just throws out there.

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Eolz said:

Nagoshi is Sega's CCO, not just the boss of the Yakuza team.

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Ah, OK I guess it makes more sense then.
My impression was that he's more the face of Yakuza series than Sega games in general.

pswii60 said:

So the box art is a lie

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It's a lesson that sony will learn in the future. They shouldnt put everything "only on..." on something they dont even own. Words change, people change, everything can change

Yakuza as a franchise is over a decade old. It has mostly been a PS exclusive franchise but the sales growth just isn't there, it's as niche now as it was 10 years ago except now Japan sales have dropped considerably. It just doesn't make sense to keep it exclusive and should be on every device.

Eolz said:

Nagoshi is Sega's CCO, not just the boss of the Yakuza team.

Should have pushed for the other reasons :p

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There were a lot of things that I wanted to ask but I was very short on time.

Romain said:

There were a lot of things that I wanted to ask but I was very short on time.

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I hope you (or anyone else in the industry) can get an interview with Nagoshi san one day. He's the face and boss of the Yakuza series.

Surely its his masterpiece as he's worked on it for so long. There just aren't that many interviews of him regarding the Yakuza series.

dbcyber said:

Yakuza as a franchise is over a decade old. It has mostly been a PS exclusive franchise but the sales growth just isn't there, it's as niche now as it was 10 years ago except now Japan sales have dropped considerably. It just doesn't make sense to keep it exclusive and should be on every device.

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The reason they're even doing ports is because of how well Yakuza has suddenly done after Yakuza 0, and Yakuza 6 continued some of that success. It seems to be doing better than ever in the West. Three physical Yakuza releases this year alone compared to a low key digital only release just a few years ago for Yakuza 5. Their spearhead here with PC is a good call, as is their careful consideration of where to go next.

just read the article, had to skip over spoilers for 6 because I just started it.

Man - I hope these games get European localisations - french, german, spanish etc.

I could see them do it for FOTNS.

arbok26 said:

just read the article, had to skip over spoilers for 6 because I just started it.

Man - I hope these games get European localisations - french, german, spanish etc.

I could see them do it for FOTNS.

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They won't do it for FOTNS. European localisations will come. But we don't know when.

No way Binary Domain 2 is ever happening lol

Honestly i'm not really into the idea of an hypotetical Yakuza 0-2. I feel Zero was more than enough to define Kiryu and Majima's past and introducing yet another big Yakuza conflict that happened before 1 would feel really weird this time -especially considering 1 and 2 have already received the Kiwami treatment and said conflict would never have the chance to be fit into later games. A more light-hearted game with school-time Kiryu as a protagonist would be super dope though.

Sad to hear they are not mentioning the possibility of a new "crazy" spin-off...i will never give-up on sci-fi Space Yakuza :(

Romain said:

They won't do it for FOTNS. European localisations will come. But we don't know when.

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Oh its been confirmed? Thats too bad.

Thats one reason why i think nier did well because it had european localisations.

bonesawisready5 said:

That won't fix it.

So MS is going to throw money at every Japanese game? No.

These Japanese developers are going to willing let expensive games in development go on Game Pass day one? No. Especially when they can make bank selling on other consoles in their home region.


I don't think you understand the problem. The Japanese market doesn't care about Xbox thus Japanese developers don't. Some can be bought to make late ports but that doesn't solve the issue.

The solution would be getting Persona 6, Yakuza 7, etc on xbox same day as all platforms

Those games won't go to Game Pass day one. Japanese developers won't do that because they need to make money and quite frankly they already know they can make that money on PlayStation and Nintendo so why risk it?

They won't get satisfactory Japanese developer support until the Japanese market, the one Japanese developers mostly cater to outside of popular IPs in the west like FF, Until the Japanese market forces Japanese devs to care about Xbox

Chicken and the egg really. Idk if they can ever solve it.

Nintendo has a bit console right now that is getting good third party support and indies but even it still has holdouts like EA with anytbing not FIFA and Activision with COD, Take Two with RDR2. I imagine the situation plays out like this for Xbox and Japanese games. I mean heck, Square won't even make KH 1-2 for Xbox despite 3 coming

This also doesn't account for Japanese games selling worse on Xbox than PlayStation and Nintendo. Even if the games went to Game Pass and were talking about late ports here, that doesn't guarantee the Xbox base buys in to something they haven't been exposed too

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Actually Phil said that:

1) Phil acknowledges that they have tried and failed with Xbox in Japan twice (or three times if you count XBO there as an effort) and it sounds like he has accepted where they stand there. Better to concentrate resource on the regions where they are more likely to see success.

2) However, Phil also acknowledges the importance of Japanese games to the global audience, so irrelevant of how well Xbox is doing in Japan, he still wants (needs) the games to come to Xbox.

3) Japanese games with a potential global audience should be much easier to bring to Xbox with the right kind of support. Phil thinks they can support Japanese publishers to give their game a more 'global' (reality: Anglosphere) presence and so far we've seen some successes already - hence the likes of MHW and Valkyria Chronicles coming to Xbox which likely wouldn't have happened earlier this gen, due to the types of conversations Phil has been having.

4) Phil acknowledges Japanese games which are aimed at, or heavily weighted towards, the Japanese market are a much harder sell. These are the games where Phil suggested he could ink a business deal to have them coming to Game Pass instead - where that very deal would cover the development costs of porting. It sounded like he is already having these conversations. The types of games that would never sell in the West (so the deal isn't going to damage any existing sales), but might get a cult following due to Game Pass. He likened it to foreign TV shows and movies seeing success on Netflix.

It's also clear from the presence of Japanese games at Xbox's E3 conference this year, that they're being more proactive there than they have been since the 360 days.

Phantom Thief said:

Fucking please.

It is what it is, but I can't roll my eyes enough at this.

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Damn, man he said it's probably not a good fit. It's not about kids games and what not, half the game is cutscenes and silly mini-games. While whimsical at times, Yakuza series has some disturbing shit in it. Like, Reggie would probably pass on it, lol.

Dude is saving lil girls on corners selling panties n shit... I dunno man.

Yo, why are people all of a sudden into Yakuza now? Weird..

Phil, you know what you have to do.

Love to see how good Yakuza 6 would look and run like on the One X

lol Using the Wii U as your excuse nothing sold on the Wii U but go ask bethesda how the Skyrim and Doom ports did.