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News RGG Studio Head: Yakuza/Like a Dragon's "underground feeling" too inappropriate for Switch (??????)

9-Volt said:
Lol wtf. Does this dude even know what a Switch is? If not I wanna buy him one with a selection of first party games with absolutely zero daylight in it, like Luigi's Mansion and Metroid Dread.

Man this is much worse and more embarrassing than the MK11 situation. Just say that you're still bitter about Wii U game sales.
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He wasn't speaking literally, of course. Luigi's Mansion is a daylight game.

Metroid, not so much though, because it's targeting an older audience
 
ILikeFeet said:
He wasn't speaking literally, of course. Luigi's Mansion is a daylight game.

Metroid, not so much though, because it's targeting an older audience
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I know, "daylight" is such a wrong word to describe Nintendo's Switch library. They're much more diverse than anyone else.

And I also describe Yakuza as a "daylight" game if it's compared to the western counterparts like GTA or Saints Row. I mean there are no guns in the games (save for couple instances).
 
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Makes you wonder what NCL feels about him promoting the old mindset of certain games/experiences not being a good fit the same months they are dropping Bayonetta 3.

Kinda framing it in away of saying that people that make that move give up some of their identity and thats not something they want to do. Its really weird.
 
cw_sasuke said:
Makes you wonder what NCL feels about him promoting the old mindset of certain games/experiences not being a good fit the same months they are dropping Bayonetta 3.

Kinda framing it in away of saying that people that make that move give up some of their identity and thats not something they want to do. Its really weird.
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At this point it’s probably about how Yakuza are viewed in Japanese media or something, that’s the only difference between it and other M rated games on Switch. Therefore they think it would be a bad look for both them and Nintendo to release the game on Switch, like sure there are violent games on the system but they either have fantastical settings or they occur in America. I guess Wii U had the games because it not only didn’t sell well but it tried to have that “hardcore gamer” image to it, Switch is too much of a mainstream success for them to release a game that’s about a touchy subject in Japan.
 
Yoshifan31 said:
At this point it’s probably about how Yakuza are viewed in Japanese media or something, that’s the only difference between it and other M rated games on Switch. Therefore they think it would be a bad look for both them and Nintendo to release the game on Switch, like sure there are violent games on the system but they either have fantastical settings or they occur in America. I guess Wii U had the games because it not only didn’t sell well but it tried to have that “hardcore gamer” image to it, Switch is too much of a mainstream success for them to release a game that’s about a touchy subject in Japan.
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It's not about how Yakuza is viewed in Japanese media, this is clearly about how Yokoyama views Yakuza in his head.
 
He does realize that a family friendly movie and Yakuza film would both play on the same device, right? This analogy is absurd on so many levels.
 
Yoshifan31 said:
At this point it’s probably about how Yakuza are viewed in Japanese media or something, that’s the only difference between it and other M rated games on Switch. Therefore they think it would be a bad look for both them and Nintendo to release the game on Switch, like sure there are violent games on the system but they either have fantastical settings or they occur in America. I guess Wii U had the games because it not only didn’t sell well but it tried to have that “hardcore gamer” image to it, Switch is too much of a mainstream success for them to release a game that’s about a touchy subject in Japan.
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A good chunk of the GTA III campaign has the main character becoming a Yakuza goon carrying out all sorts of criminal activities in their name and that game is on Switch with no issues whatsoever. Contrary to what Nagoshi and Sato in the past and this guy in the present may believe, the only reaction that the Yakuza franchise on Switch would cause would be "Huh... neat!" and that would be it.
 
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Yoshifan31 said:
At this point it’s probably about how Yakuza are viewed in Japanese media or something, that’s the only difference between it and other M rated games on Switch. Therefore they think it would be a bad look for both them and Nintendo to release the game on Switch, like sure there are violent games on the system but they either have fantastical settings or they occur in America. I guess Wii U had the games because it not only didn’t sell well but it tried to have that “hardcore gamer” image to it, Switch is too much of a mainstream success for them to release a game that’s about a touchy subject in Japan.
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literally none of that matters
 
Back in the days, I put my DVD in the trash right after my little brother used it to watch a Disney movie, so I totally agree with this developer
 
Cucufate said:
A good chunk of the GTA III campaign has the main character becoming a Yakuza goon carrying out all sorts of criminal activities in their name and that game is on Switch with no issues whatsoever. Contrary to what Nagoshi and Sato in the past and this guy in the present may believe, the only reaction that the Yakuza franchise on Switch would cause would be "Huh... neat!" and that would be the end of it.
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Yeah but this game isn’t literally called Yakuza and people only buy GTA games to fuck around, they never do the campaign

What I’m saying here is that it’s pretty surprising that two different people have exactly the same excuse and the same PS1/PS2 era Sony fanboy mindset. I thought maybe there was more to it especially considering that Sega has multiple M rated games on the system already. We already went over the topic of certain industry executive being fanboys but nothing about the cultural context around the game
 
Yoshifan31 said:
Yeah but this game isn’t literally called Yakuza and people only buy GTA games to fuck around, they never do the campaign

What I’m saying here is that it’s pretty surprising that two different people have exactly the same excuse and the same PS1/PS2 era Sony fanboy mindset. I thought maybe there was more to it especially considering that Sega has multiple M rated games on the system already. We already went over the topic of certain industry executive being fanboys but nothing about the cultural context around the game
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that's because there's no provable/falsifiable cultural context here. it's not a reasonable conclusion to make

EDIT: one of the things I remember reading is that "yakuza" is the wrong title to the series because while it has yakuza stories, it's not about the Yakuza per se or something like that. probably why they changed the series name to Like A Dragon, which is what the JP name is
 
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Yoshifan31 said:
Yeah but this game isn’t literally called Yakuza
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In Japan the Yakuza games aren't called Yakuza either, so that wouldn't be an issue anyway.
Yoshifan31 said:
What I’m saying here is that it’s pretty surprising that two different people have exactly the same excuse and the same PS1/PS2 era Sony fanboy mindset. I thought maybe there was more to it especially considering that Sega has multiple M rated games on the system already. We already went over the topic of certain industry executive being fanboys but nothing about the cultural context around the game
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I think it is just a case of following the mentality of the guys that used to be in charge. The people that used to call the shots regarding this franchise thought it wasn't a good fit for the Switch for a variety of reasons (reasons of dubious merit if you ask me, but that's another story), so the ones that took their place simply followed suit.
 
Sometimes I think of games I could play on Deck but I'll wait to see if they show up on next Switch for greater convenience and other benefits. This is one of the rare cases where I feel like they're straight up telling me to not waste my time.
 
SirArthur said:
Nintendo when asked about RGG:
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Pretty sure Nintendo does care about Yakuza series. Iwata appeared on Nintendo Direct with Nagoshi even. And Nintendo today is much more aggressive about third party support than they were during the Wii U era.

There's definitely some bad blood between two sides. We don't know whatever happened between Iwata and RGG studio behind closed door but this definitely smells like a fallout. It can't be anything. Maybe RGG asked for funding for a game that wouldn't be Nintendo exclusive? Or refused to port the Yakuza game Nintendo wanted (they didn't even localized the ones on Wii U).
 
Charamiwa said:
I know we can't get enough of that story, so here's a new development thanks to a new TGS interview curated by dojimadragongirl. Yokoyama was annoyed at overseas media for misquoting him on the Switch business, so he has a new explanation which is saying the exact same thing again. Anyway, here it is:



DO NOT put your Yakuza games next to your Switch collection.
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I like the interview has to bring up how long mainline sequels take when 4 years has been evident for a decade 5(2012)>6(2016)>7(2020).
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
Sometimes I think of games I could play on Deck but I'll wait to see if they show up on next Switch for greater convenience and other benefits. This is one of the rare cases where I feel like they're straight up telling me to not waste my time.
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Good way to look at it. A goofy answer is better than no answer.
 
9-Volt said:
Pretty sure Nintendo does care about Yakuza series. Iwata appeared on Nintendo Direct with Nagoshi even. And Nintendo today is much more aggressive about third party support than they were during the Wii U era.

There's definitely some bad blood between two sides. We don't know whatever happened between Iwata and RGG studio behind closed door but this definitely smells like a fallout. It can't be anything. Maybe RGG asked for funding for a game that wouldn't be Nintendo exclusive? Or refused to port the Yakuza game Nintendo wanted (they didn't even localized the ones on Wii U).
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Of course, I was mostly joking. Nagoshi was even on stage for the Switch presentation. We might never know the whole picture, maybe Nagoshi says something, now that he is no longer with Sega but we will see in the future.
 
Charamiwa said:
I know we can't get enough of that story, so here's a new development thanks to a new TGS interview curated by dojimadragongirl. Yokoyama was annoyed at overseas media for misquoting him on the Switch business, so he has a new explanation which is saying the exact same thing again. Anyway, here it is:



DO NOT put your Yakuza games next to your Switch collection.
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Why hasn’t any reporter responded to his ridiculous excuse with something like “the company you work for, SEGA, also owns the Bayonetta IP, which is a similarly ‘dark’ series, yet Nintendo themselves has published the entire series on Nintendo Switch with the third installment, Bayonetta 3, releasing this month—what makes the Yakuza series any different?”

Like, it’s such a dumb fucking excuse to which there are plenty of obvious potential counter-responses, but somehow reporters just drop the ball and let that ridiculous excuse stand instead of challenging it. I don’t even care about the Yakuza series but this kind of shit frustrates me to no end.
 
Tye said:
Why hasn’t any reporter responded to his ridiculous excuse with something like “the company you work for, SEGA, also owns the Bayonetta IP, which is a similarly ‘dark’ series, yet Nintendo themselves has published the entire series on Nintendo Switch with the third installment, Bayonetta 3, releasing this month—what makes the Yakuza series any different?”

Like, it’s such a dumb fucking excuse to which there are plenty of obvious potential counter-responses, but somehow reporters just drop the ball and let that ridiculous excuse stand instead of challenging it. I don’t even care about the Yakuza series but this kind of shit frustrates me to no end.
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great way not to get invited for interviews again.
 
Charamiwa said:
I know we can't get enough of that story, so here's a new development thanks to a new TGS interview curated by dojimadragongirl. Yokoyama was annoyed at overseas media for misquoting him on the Switch business, so he has a new explanation which is saying the exact same thing again. Anyway, here it is:



DO NOT put your Yakuza games next to your Switch collection.
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chris-evans-laughing.gif


goes back to playing Nier on his Kiddy Switch
 
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ILikeFeet said:
great way not to get invited for interviews again.
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I mean, is that not the media’s job, to report the facts and not settle for bullshit? I know it’s depressingly common for that not to be the case in modern journalism, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t still be the standard that the media is held to.

Also, plenty of video game journalists ask unwanted questions yet don’t get blacklisted for it—I can think of a number of times IGN has done ridiculous stuff and gotten away with it, for example.
 
This is so weird, is he trying to uphold some form of facade or what is this really about. Does he think they would lose fans on existing platforms if they released the game on Switch? It's such a weird hill to die on.

Because no one in 2022 can be still actually believe that the only thing people play on Nintendo platforms is colorful platformers or whatever people from the past think people play on Nintendo platforms.
 
Phantom Thief said:
Also a great way to be a proper journalist though. You’re not their PR arm lol
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I wish, but that's just not the state of gaming journalism. only when obviously-bad-thing happens do they dump on companies, but they rarely ever take the chance to do in-person callouts. at best, they'd just get a no-comment, but I can't really remember the last time I saw that
 
Yokoyama trying to keep that 'edgy SEGA' vibe in 2022.

RGG are totally releasing these games on Switch 2 once they can optimise their games well enough through Dragon Engine - Yakuza 6 was a bit messy on launch for PS4, after all. They should hire external studio to do it for them if it's a matter of resources, I think the sales will speak for themselves if they tried to release them on Switch.
 
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Wonder what the percentage will be this go around for sales in JP. Considering they say it’s 30% it may go lower.

Also add another one to the bingo board. Like I’ve said before it 3rd parties will continue to make new excuses or bring back old ones with a new coat of paint, even just using them verbatim.
 
Tentacle-tropes said:
Also add another one to the bingo board. Like I’ve said before it 3rd parties will continue to make new excuses or bring back old ones with a new coat of paint, even just using them verbatim.
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???

What other third parties are doing this? The only holdouts at this point are EA, Namco, and RGG. Every other third party is tripping over themselves to bring their stuff to the Switch when it is possible to (and often even when it isn't).
 
Phantom Thief said:
???

What other third parties are doing this? The only holdouts at this point are EA, Namco, and RGG. Every other third party is tripping over themselves to bring their stuff to the Switch when it is possible to (and often even when it isn't).
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I mean there are more holdouts like what we saw with SH2 for instance. Quite a few more in JP still exist so no not every 3rd party is tripping over themeselves to bring stuff over. However, yes the 3rd party situation has improved if you look at my previous comments I’ve said as much.

What I’m saying and have said in another thread is that regardless of how well Nintendo does every so often you’ll get one of these. Where a 3rd party either creates a new excuse to put on the bingo board or rehashes one that still exists.
 
Tentacle-tropes said:
I mean there are more holdouts like what we saw with SH2 for instance. Quite a few more in JP still exist so no not every 3rd party is tripping over themeselves to bring stuff over. However, yes the 3rd party situation has improved if you look at my previous comments I’ve said as much.

What I’m saying and have said in another thread is that regardless of how well Nintendo does every so often you’ll get one of these. Where a 3rd party either creates a new excuse to put on the bingo board or rehashes one that still exists.
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SH2 barely functions on a base PS4 and Xbox One. It's presumably a holdout because the team neither has the capability nor the budget to spend time trying to get it to run on the Switch (which already isn't the best hardware for Unity to begin with). Other than that, Atlus has gone out of its way to support the Switch over the last three years; all Atlus announcements except ONE were either for games that are Switch exclusive, or also have Switch versions.

And while I am sure we will have SOME third party holdouts continuing to make increasingly contrived and stupid excuses like this one to avoid Nintendo in the future, the issue I took with your statement above was that it projects the idea that third parties are still trying their hardest to avoid Nintendo, which this generation we have seen categorically is not the case. But on the whole, if Nintendo doesn't fuck up the Switch successor, I think third party holdouts will become more and more rare (and more notable, since they will become increasingly the isolated exception).
 
Charamiwa said:
I know we can't get enough of that story, so here's a new development thanks to a new TGS interview curated by dojimadragongirl. Yokoyama was annoyed at overseas media for misquoting him on the Switch business, so he has a new explanation which is saying the exact same thing again. Anyway, here it is:



DO NOT put your Yakuza games next to your Switch collection.
Click to expand...
holy based
 
Phantom Thief said:
SH2 barely functions on a base PS4 and Xbox One. It's presumably a holdout because the team neither has the capability nor the budget to spend time trying to get it to run on the Switch (which already isn't the best hardware for Unity to begin with). Other than that, Atlus has gone out of its way to support the Switch over the last three years; all Atlus announcements except ONE were either for games that are Switch exclusive, or also have Switch versions.

And while I am sure we will have SOME third party holdouts continuing to make increasingly contrived and stupid excuses like this one to avoid Nintendo in the future, the issue I took with your statement above was that it projects the idea that third parties are still trying their hardest to avoid Nintendo, which this generation we have seen categorically is not the case. But on the whole, if Nintendo doesn't fuck up the Switch successor, I think third party holdouts will become more and more rare (and more notable, since they will become increasingly the isolated exception).
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We have gone over this on IB and frankly no one finds the performance of the game skipping Switch convincing. You don’t hype up this game as being the next pillar of your company and after 2019, when Switch proved to everyone with data, only to then put it on PS/Xbox/PC only. Especially for a series that will probably pull most of its sales from JP. While also being somewhat adjacent to SMT & SH1 (which was on a Nintendo system). That is considered for worst decision making in the year. Even then P6 is probably skipping with Re:Fantasy also skipping the system in the near future. With the amount of time it takes for Atlus to make games don’t expect an Etrian Oydessy to pop up anytime soon.

If you wanna read it that way and take umbrage with it then go off. The comment still stands ,holdouts or not, that 3rd parties will continue to make dumb reasons every so often about not putting their games on a Nintendo machine.

Edit: we are in general agreement though that there will be less holdouts so comments like these will stand out more. For the most part the Switch has Nintendo the best it’s ever been from a 3rd party situation since the Famicom. Regardless I’ll just leave at that here.
 
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Yoshifan31 said:
Yeah but this game isn’t literally called Yakuza and people only buy GTA games to fuck around, they never do the campaign
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I wanna see the receipt for that because quite some cool shit is locked behind story progress most of the time.
 
Tentacle-tropes said:
We have gone over this on IB and frankly no one finds the performance of the game skipping Switch convincing. You don’t hype up this game as being the next pillar of your company and after 2019, when Switch proved to everyone with data, only to then put it on PS/Xbox/PC only. Especially for a series that will probably pull most of its sales from JP. While also being somewhat adjacent to SMT & SH1 (which was on a Nintendo system). That is considered for worst decision making in the year. Even then P6 is probably skipping with Re:Fantasy also skipping the system in the near future. With the amount of time it takes for Atlus to make games don’t expect an Etrian Oydessy to pop up anytime soon.
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Adding to this:

FbR9PlcXgAATpVa


Expect more of this stuff as Japanese developers start to push the Steam Deck as a Switch replacement.
 
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Lol honestly what do you say to that? It straight up casts doubt onto the whole idea of "business will always do what makes sense for business". Like that was never true but, now more than ever, it really should be clear
 
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
 
SuperFakerBros said:
Lol honestly what do you say to that? It straight up casts doubt onto the whole idea of "business will always do what makes sense for business". Like that was never true but, now more than ever, it really should be clear
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This was always the funniest non-truth I keep seeing posted around on social media. If anything business people are more deranged and detached from reality than the average person, unless someone can tell me how people like Yoichi Wada and David Zaslav are actually geniuses
 
Paxie said:
This was always the funniest non-truth I keep seeing posted around on social media. If anything business people are more deranged and detached from reality than the average person, unless someone can tell me how people like Yoichi Wada and David Zaslav are actually geniuses
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Oh yeah or Elon Musk buying Twitter and desperately trying to back out or all of his embarrassing tech CEO friends talking shop with him. Like these guys aren't geniuses or always logical by a long shot. Sometimes or even a lot of the time, personal beliefs or feelings win out over what actually makes the most sense
 
SuperFakerBros said:
Lol honestly what do you say to that? It straight up casts doubt onto the whole idea of "business will always do what makes sense for business". Like that was never true but, now more than ever, it really should be clear
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"They know better than you and I. They have the data." It's funny how the internet considers "the data" as this infallible source of information considering how frequently even the most notable companies fuck up at critical points. Like, for example, I'm sure that circa 2016/2017 most third party companies looked at "the data" and went "Yep, that Switch thing is gonna flop super hard. Better ignore it!"

And, as we all know, that's totally what happened.
 
Cucufate said:
"They know better than you and I. They have the data." It's funny how the internet considers "the data" as this infallible source of information considering how frequently even the most notable companies fuck up at critical points. Like, for example, I'm sure that circa 2016/2017 most third party companies looked at "the data" and went "Yep, that Switch thing is gonna flop super hard. Better ignore it!"

And, as we all know, that's totally what happened.
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Exactly. Now that's not to say that companies can't have better insight or knowledge on how to do things than the average person, they usually do, but it's not always the case because, well, they're still run by people and people have blind spots or biases
 
Thank God Sega/Atlus only put their bright, lovely, family games like the one of the witch torturing angels and getting naked or the one where Lucifer tells you God is dead and you make pacts and fuse demons. Really, Yakuza would be out of place and be damaged 🥺.
 
Except they can't blacklist everybody, cut them off, and tell them "You're Fake Gaming Press!!", because doing that would hurt the publisher's reputation. This is where multiple journalists and publications would come together ideally - ALL OF THEM should be asking these questions, not acting like some self-serving politicians, trying to get whatever perks they can from these publishers. You know what else? Taking this approach would boost their readerships because they would be speaking for the fan, for the consumer. We should be demanding far better of the gaming press, and if they don't deliver, then deprive their sites of our clicks and stop supporting them with our time/money.,, and calling this shit out is not to be conflated with "being toxic". Perhaps if we did, there would be a lot less clickbait.
 
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