Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio have revealed that long time leads Toshihiro Nagoshi and Daisuke Sato have left the company and the studio has undergone a restructure as a result. Masayoshi Yokoyama will now take over from Nagoshi as the studio’s Director and Executive Producer.
Toshihiro Nagoshi has been a SEGA mainstay since 1989, starting as a designer and director on games like Virtua Racing, Daytona USA and Shenmue before finding fame as the lead director of the Super Monkey Ball and Yakuza franchises.
Daisuke Sato is also a long-tenured SEGA employee starting his career on field map production for 1995’s Magic Knight Rayearth on the Saturn and having designer credits on games like SEGA Super GT, Virtua Fighter 3tb and Shenmue. Sato’s career highlights also include directing duties Yakuza 3 and Binary Domain.
You can read the full story on RGG Studio’s restructure by clicking this link.
SEGA is having yet another organisational shift, as the start of the new fiscal year looms. From April 1st, corporate functions will be integrated between the SEGA SAMMY Holdings group (aligning the operations of SEGA and Sammy more, from what we understand), and there’ll be some staff shifting about too. Perhaps none more eye-catching than Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, who’ll be stepping back from his role as SEGA’s CCO (that’s Chief Creative Officer) and into a Creative Director role.
The corporate changes aren’t anything surprising and are fairly normal around the start of a new fiscal year, and it might not even mean a whole lot to the average SEGA fan; but SEGA’s getting it out of the way quite early, and Nagoshi stepping back is at least somewhat of a surprise. He’s certainly had a bumpy couple of years; with his revelation in 2019 that he’d had heart surgery, and the furore he kicked off in 2020 after managing to insult a pro Puyo Puyo player live on air. Either way, we do wonder if this could mean Nagoshi gets closer to the games being developed at SEGA again, because that would obviously be no bad thing.
When Tracker isn’t playing SEGA games, he’s talking about SEGA games. Or drawing about SEGA games. Or all of the above. You can also catch him over on Twitter.
Tags: sega japan, sega sammy, Toshihiro Nagoshi Posted in News | Comments Off on SEGA Reshuffling Management And Structure Again, Toshihiro Nagoshi Steps Down as CCO And Becomes Creative Director
A leak on the American Playstation Store has revealed the existence of a Yakuza Remastered Collection. This collection is the localised Western versions of the previously Japan-only PS4 versions of Yakuza 3, 4 and 5. The games are being released digitally first with a new localisation and all the content that was previously cut for the Western versions.
Yakuza 3 will release today with Yakuza 4 releasing on October 29th 2019 and Yakuza 5 will arrive on the 11th of February 2020. Once all 3 digital releases are available, a boxed collection of all 3 titles will be available as well. Pre-orders will supposedly arrive at some point today but at time of writing I can’t find any listings.
The boxed version comes with some really cool exclusives if you pre-order the day one edition. Yakuza 3 and 4 come on one disc with Yakuza 5 on a seperate disc. This is because it is also bundled with a PS3 style case for Yakuza 5 which infamously only got a digital release in PAL regions. Also included is a 2 disc digipack case which houses the entire collection.
SEGA have just uploaded the first in-game trailer for Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD, and as you can expect it’s basically Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz in HD. That’s no bad thing because the original game was certainly a good-looking game, and with that added clarity it now looks even better. Check it out:
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD released on the 29th of October 2019 for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One. A PC port will arrive later in the Winter. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is also famous for being the last Super Monkey Ball game directed by series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi who would later find fame with the Yakuza franchise.
It would appear that SEGA’s PC port of Yakuza 0 has done well enough to justify porting another Yakuza title to the platform. This time it’s the remake of the original Yakuza game, Yakuza Kiwami.
Yakuza Kiwami was rebuilt from the ground up for PS4 and features an expanded take on the original game that references some of the revelations that took place in Yakuza 0. This PC port features additional support for 4K resolutions and uncapped framerates.
Pre-ordering the game now gives you a 10% discount, bringing the game down from £14.99 to £13.49. Yakuza Kiwami was developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios and this PC port launches on the 19th of February 2019.
The first game in Toshihiro Nagoshi’s hugely successful Yakuza franchise is a fascinating little game because it showcases a lot of familiar elements that will stay with the series all the way to present day. Yakuza is an incredibly accomplished first entry in a series that has simply reiterated on its template instead of taking it in a completely different direction.
Yakuza 0 is launching in the West early next year (Early 2017 for Europe but a firm January 24th 2017 date for the US) and those lucky Americans get a launch-day “Business Edition” of the game which includes a stainless steel business card holder that includes 3 cards based on characters and places in the actual game. As long as you pre-order the game in North America you will receive a Business Edition which means this edition basically takes the place of what is normally labelled a “day one” edition aka the first print run of the game.
You can also check out a new trailer for the game by clicking below. You can also watch the slightly different European version of the trailer (different release date, no mention of the Business Edition) by clicking here.
Finally; some E3 SEGA action! First up today we have a new trailer of the Western version of Yakuza 0. My favourite thing about this title is that defeating enemies results in a delicious spray of money. Check it out:
SEGA Europe have finally committed to a release of Yakuza 0.
The European version of Yakuza 0 is planned to arrive in, “early 2017”. The game will launch as both a physical and digital release on PS4, which makes a nice change considering Yakuza 5 was a digital only release.
Yakuza 0 is a prequel to the original Yakuza game on PS2. You can also watch a new trailer below:
Digital Foundry are at it once again with a technical analysis video of the new Yakuza 6 demo which is currently exclusive to owners of Yakuza Kiwami. There is also an accompanying article you can read by clicking here. Take a look at the below embed to see the game in action with some insightful commentary on what’s doing differently this time around:
Also for those who are interested, KHH Subs have uploaded a full playthrough of the demo but with added English subtitles:
Yakuza 6 is out in Autumn 2016 for PS4. It is currently exclusive to Japan.
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