Nintendo Switch is too ‘family-friendly’ for Yakuza, claims producer

Ryu Ga Gotoku studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama isn’t sure Nintendo’s platform is a good fit for ‘underground’ crime thrillers.

As the Yakuza series continues to explode in the west, many Switch owners hope the games will eventually land on Nintendo’s handheld platform. Unfortunately, Ryu Ga Gotoku studio head and executive producer Masayoshi Yokoyama isn’t sure it’s a good fit.

During an interview with Gamespot, Yokoyama offered insight into why Yakuza hasn’t come to the Nintendo Switch.

“Do we want to put a title like this where we’re going around and picking a fight with the world and doing all this Yakuza stuff, on a Switch,” Yokoyama said. “We still kind of think of ourselves as people of the night world, right? We don’t want to be like walking around the day with everybody else. Like for us, it’s kind of showing this kind of underground feeling. I think the underground kind of feeling is what we want to do.”

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It’s an interesting take, to be sure. Most of the Yakuza series recently game to PlayStation Plus and Xbox Games Pass along with slick PC port of the Judgment spinoffs, so the Nintendo Switch is the only significant omission. Hopefully, Yokoyama and everyone else at Sega will change their tune someday.

Recently, Sega also announced Like a Dragon: Ishin – a complete remake of the Yakuza spinoff. It’s also worth noting that ‘Like a Dragon‘ is the official name for Yakuza in North America and Europe going forward.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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