The diehard Yakuza series fan in me wants to point a finger at Microsoft and say that they’re stupidheads, but I know that Yakuza isn’t some big time blockbuster franchise. As much as I love Yakuza, I know that it has a small (but dedicated!) following.
Series director Toshihiro Nagoshi told Eurogamer that Microsoft had passed on the first title back in the Xbox days. But so did Sony.
“At the beginning of the project we spoke to all the platform holders including Sony and Microsoft,” he told Eurogamer. “Every platform holder was negative about this prospect, but we kept on pushing because we believed in the potential, and as we kept going the one platform holder that showed interest and saw the prospects of this title was Sony.”
“That’s how we started working with them, and that’s probably not going to change.”
I’m not sure why MS passed (or why Sony almost did), but I’m glad we live in a world where every game doesn’t have to be a massive, AAA franchise. I’m very glad someone made a home for Yakuza.
