Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio director Masayoshi Yokoyama has admitted that he had doubts about Yakuza Kiwami coming to Nintendo Switch…

The Like a Dragon series (also known as Yakuza) is one of Japan’s most iconic franchises, which has captivated players worldwide with its latest installments. Both Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio understood the needs of the market and translated recent titles such as Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth for the wider community to enjoy. However, Switch players could not enjoy these games due to several reasons.

After the release of Yakuza Kiwami on Nintendo Switch on October 24, it seems that several people at the Japanese studio were wrong. Remember when Yakuza’s producer was reluctant to release his games on Switch? At the time, Masayoshi Yokoyama rejected the port due to Nintendo’s perceived “family target audience” and technical reasons.

But the reality is that many, many people are buying it on Switch, so much so that even Yokoyama was surprised.

Porting Yakuza Kiwami to Nintendo Switch was a good decision

Yokoyama talked about Yakuza Kiwami coming to Nintendo Switch during a recent livestream. As he put it, the game is “selling like hotcakes”, but it must also be admitted that, according to MyNintendoNews, he was wrong in his previous predictions. “First of all, I heard that Kiwami is selling like hotcakes. This is a good thing. 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.” he said.

After all that, he seems satisfied with the results so far. “I made the first Yakuza game 20 years ago. Then it became Kiwami, but it was already published. It had been available for a long time, and I thought people all over the world had already tried it. […] Well, it’s a port, you know. As a creator, I’m very happy that people are playing with it again. It’s hard to recreate games. It’s not easy to sell a game again. That’s why I’m very happy,” he says.

Source: MyNintendoNews