Former Yakuza series director announces new studio under NetEase

Last year it was reported that long-time Sega director behind the Yakuza and Super Monkey Ball games Toshihiro Nagoshi was in talks to leave the company and form his own team under NetEase. Now we know for sure it’s real. Nagoshi Studio has officially launched and they’ve already begun work on their first game.

In an official press release NetEase say they’re “developing high-quality console titles that will be released globally”, which hopefully means PC ports too – they just forgot that part. Otherwise, there’s a lot of talk about dreams and entertainment and working with NetEase to “Unleash the Potential of Creators”.

Nagoshi is joined by eight other founding members, all of whom were previously a part of Sega or Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. One major pick-up is Daisuke Sato, the previous head of RGG Studios who will now act as director of Nagoshi Studio. The others who make up this dream team are Kazuki Hosokawa, Koji Tokieda, Masao Shirosaki, Mitsunori Fujimoto, Naoki Someya, Toshihiro Ando, and Taichi Ushioda. Fingers crossed their potential is unleashed.

Meatier details on Nagoshi Studio lie in an interview with Japanese video games magazine Famitsu. And according to VGC’s translation, they’ve already started work on their first game that’s likely to appeal to a Japanese audience.

Another focus of Nagoshi Studio is patience, as they’d rather release games when they’re ready instead of rushing them out.

Twitter user Nibel also translated tidbits of the same interview and offers some extra insights into Nagoshi’s new venture. You can check out the full thread for more info.

As a Yakuza fan I’m very excited for whatever Nagoshi Studios are cooking up. While I’d love a Yakuza-y ‘thing’, I’d also love for them to throw us an absolute curveball. But whatever curveball it may be, I just hope it marries wackiness with melodrama, or chicken realtors and devastating betrayals.