Back in 2022, Ryu Ga Gotoku studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama talked about the chances of bringing the Yakuza/Like A Dragon series to the Switch, and stated that he felt the series wasn’t a good fit for Switch due to its family-friendly image, especially in Japan. He also noted that the “underground” nature of the Yakuza series didn’t mesh well with the Switch, so felt it was pretty unlikely the series would come over.
Five years later, the remake of the first game Yakuza Kiwami has been ported to Switch and Yokoyama is being forced to eat some crow because the game is selling well above expectations. Masayoshi Yokoyama himself confirmed the sales boon in a message on social media, which you can see below.
First of all, I heard that ‘Kiwami’ is selling like hotcakes. That’s good. The executives of the company were predicting the number of units. I missed it by a long shot. I think I looked at it a bit too conservatively. Kato, the marketing manager, guessed it, but it was very exciting. It was 20 years ago when I made the first Yakuza game. And then it was changed to ‘Kiwami’, but even ‘Kiwami’ had already been released, hadn’t it? It’s been out for a long time, and I thought it was something that people all over the world had touched, but this time, with the Amazon Prime drama and all the other things that happened, it’s on Switch. Well, it’s already a port, you know. And it’s a download-only game. As someone who makes games, I’m very happy that people are playing it again. It’s difficult to remake games. It’s not easy to sell a game once more. That’s why I’m so happy. I’m very happy. I think there are a lot of people who want to play the Switch one more time. I downloaded it too. It’s nice to be able to take it with you.
It would not shock us if more games from the series make their way to Nintendo systems going forward.
