Since Yakuza first launched on the PlayStation 2 back in 2005, the series has enjoyed great success on Sony’s platforms. It would be fair to say that Yakuza feels right at home on Sony’s consoles, especially with the latest game, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, being a PS4 exclusive.
However, it could have been very different for Yakuza and Sony as Yakuza series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi has revealed that he had pitched the game to both Microsoft and Nintendo in an attempt to get them to bring the game to their platforms.
Neither company were interested in the game though, which resulted in the original Yakuza being exclusive to the PlayStation 2. Since then, nearly every Yakuza game has been exclusive to Sony’s platforms, with the odd exception.
In an interview with Edge magazine, Toshihiro Nagoshi revealed, “I’ve never said this before, but while we released this game with Sony, I’d done presentations 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 it.”
While it doesn’t look likely that future Yakuza games will be heading to the Nintendo Switch, we may see some more titles heading to PC. Yakuza 0 became the first game in the series to release on PC, having come to Steam on August 1st.
As for Microsoft and the Xbox One, we’ll just have to wait and see.