As we know The Yakuza Series has been popular on PlayStation fans or it started on PlayStation platform (PlayStation 2). But Little we know that actually Sega had been promoting Yakuza series on other companies like Microsoft and Nintendo as well. But they were rejected .
As Executive Toshihro Nagoshi told on Edge Magazine
"I've never said this before, but while we released this game with Sony, i'd done presentation about it to Microsoft and Nintendo. Back then they said "No we don't want it." Now they say, "We want it." (laughs) They didn't understand the reason why i created.
Nagoshi also explained they also having difficulty on getting the green lit with Sega to make the games , because the games has specific target, which is Japanese male.
“It became difficult for Japanese companies to compete with western games of high quality and big budgets (…) if we wanted to do, it would have to be sports, or military, or fantasy (…)and it would need to release worldwide. (…) since everyone was thinking the same things, everyone was making similar games (laughs).
But I thought it wasn’t right to follow that direction. So, first, I abandoned the idea of selling worldwide. Next, I decided I wouldn’t mind if female players didn’t like the game; then that no children were allowed. When I decided all that, the only target left was the japanese male.”
“My bosses took some convincing. I did a presentation twice, and didn’t get approval. (…)
Sega was struggling for cash and was very close to bankruptcy, so it merged with Sammy. As soon as it happened, I went to see the new owner and presented the game to him, looking for his approval. Professionally, this was highly irregular and quite wrong. But I knew if the owner said “yes”, it would be good for the entire company. (…)
I got his approval, but our CEO was really mad about it (laughs). He said it was unfair.”
https://www.dualshockers.com/yakuza-microsoft-nintendo/
So it seems the Yakuza series had been gone with many obstacle and hardship , but Sony took the risk and help Yakuza become popular both in Japan and in the west. I am glad that Sony risking on publishing new type of games and in the end it helps them gain a great fans. It's funny how Nintendo and Microsoft begging fore the games now while Sony risking their name on it. I hope Yakuza will be exclusive on Sony for consoles because they are deserved.
