Sega: Cost and limited reach dictate why standalone retro game releases are unlikely
Sega’s Yakuza, also known as the Like a Dragon series, has featured tons of mini-games, including retro Sega titles, a concept it adopted from the Shenmue series. Through Yakuza, players have been able to access a lineup of classic games that quietly arrived on current-generation hardware, such as Daytona USA 2, The Ocean Hunter, and Toylets.
These arcade titles and mini-games have unfortunately remained confined to Yakuza games, prompting many fans to request standalone releases.
However, Sega won’t be offering independent releases anytime soon, according to Yutaka Ito, head of technology at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, and Ryosuke Horii, who produced and directed Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name.
Ito discussed the challenges of bringing standalone retro titles to modern hardware in an interview with Automaton Media, explaining:
Incidentally, we often hear people say, ‘I want you to sell retro games individually,’ but I think it would be extremely difficult to make that a viable business in this day and age. Sega is a big company, and the cost of releasing even a single piece of software is high. However, if other companies are interested in licensing Sega games, please feel free to contact us.
Horii also weighed in, touching on the financial realities of selling retro titles individually and the relatively niche audience for retro games. Horii said:
If we were to sell older games individually, we couldn’t charge high prices, and we’d also be limited in how many people we could reach. Conversely, it’s precisely because they’re part of the larger Yakuza franchise that we can include older titles without being constrained by those kinds of business concerns.
By bringing these titles back through Yakuza, I feel we’re doing something meaningful, almost like giving back to gaming culture.
Ito also discussed the introduction of the NAOMI arcade board, the Dreamcast’s arcade-style big brother, as an in-game emulator that lets players enjoy arcade titles like Slashout (2000), Emergency Call Ambulance (1999), and Magical Truck Adventure (1998).
He added, “This is the first time we’ve introduced an emulator for the NAOMI arcade board, and since NAOMI is compatible with the Dreamcast, it may be possible in the future for Dreamcast titles to be playable within Yakuza.”
Yakuza Kiwami 3 also features several Sega Game Gear titles for the first time, including Sonic Chaos, Sonic Drift, Streets of Rage, Pac-Man, and Mappy, among others.
Source(s)
Automaton Media (Japanese)
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