Series Yakuza has marked the past 2 decades and is likely to continue to be talked about following the successful turn with Yakuza: Like a Dragon. However, the future of the franchise will be without its creator, Toshihiro Nagoshi, also behind the Super Monkey Ball, who announced his departure from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio last November. His producer Daisuke Sato had also left SEGA at this moment.
Rumors had them going to NetEase Games, and rightly so: they just founded Nagoshi Studio, a team led by Toshihiro Nagoshi and owned by the Chinese publisher. They want to create an entity with an open atmosphere, where veterans and neophytes alike will have their say. The studio will be able to count on renowned talents, many of them from Ryu Ga Gotokuo Studio, including the director of Yakuza Kazuki Hosokawa, the hand program of Like a Dragon Koji Tokieda, the producer of Super Monkey Ball Masao Shirosaki, the artistic director and the lead character designer of Judgment, Naoki Someya and Toshihiro Ando, the specialist in MMORPGs Taichi Ushioda and engineer Mitsunori Fujimoto.
The sea change that began in the entertainment industry at the end of the 20th century has brought an even greater change to the industry in the 21st century. Changes to entertainment content, the way it is made, and the business model dictated by advances in technology and infrastructure have triggered a paradigm shift, and these changes have continued to unfold with more and more more speed.
What only yesterday was considered the pinnacle of cool suddenly becomes obsolete before you know it. For creators, this makes working in the industry today incredibly difficult. But no matter how times change, I believe what people basically expect from entertainment hasn’t changed one iota.
People see their dreams in entertainment. People turn to entertainment to give them hope in life, to soothe them in difficult times, and to add excitement in happy times. People look to entertainment to provide the spark for all kinds of events.
The appetite for entertainment is the same today as in the past. There are obviously differences between the past and the present in the way entertainment is consumed, its volume and its speed, but its essence remains the same. The only way to deliver this essence to the world is for all creators to approach the works they create with seriousness and clarity while stepping away to get closer to the ideal.
One of my goals in this studio is to create an open atmosphere. This may seem like too simplistic a goal. But even the most talented creators cannot fully unleash their abilities in isolation. I believe the first step to creating high quality titles and delivering the essence of entertainment with strong motivation starts with creating an open atmosphere in the studio.
It means having open discussions that ignore seniority and hierarchy. It means not being afraid of mistakes while not being afraid to correct them and treating failures as strengths. It means not giving up on achieving the ideal and striving to get closer to it. It may seem so simple, but the simplest things can be surprisingly the hardest to do, and at the same time the most important. Nagoshi Studio is committed to creating content for the whole world to enjoy this atmosphere.
Toshihiro Nagoshi
We will now have to be patient to know what this unit will work on. Until then, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is available from €24.99 on Amazon.co.uk.
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