Excalibruh
Yakuza director, Toshihiro Nagoshi who is Sega’s most prolific game producer, is now planning to leave Sega. The deal has been made, and his move is being currently transitioned. His most early works were from Super Monkey Ball, which was a game he fondly remembered working on. But before that, he worked on Shenmue. Of which his later Yakuza games, would be based on.
Chinese Companies Are Poaching Big Time
Toshihiro Nagoshi is reportedly leaving Sega for NetEase. The publisher has been looking for major talents to compete against Tencent. After seeing Nagoshi’s success with Yakuza and his history with arcade games, NetEase seems to be drawing in to poach one of Sega’s biggest producers. As of now, Sega is seeing some success from their Western developed games to the resurrection of their Sonic games.
Some speculate that this has to do with the funny retort he made about Puyo Puyo Tetris players. Where he said they look like “they eat beef bowls with cheese”. Puyo Puyo is owned by Sega, thus making fun of one of his company’s game kind of put him in the oven. He has apologized since, but was not fully cleared by the players he offended. So Sega was probably planning to let him go or give him to NetEase, with negotiations ongoing.
NetEase it seems needs more talent due to China’s proactive takedown on gaming for children. With both Tencent and NetEase having difficulties, not being able to make most of their business from their domestic side, they look forward to doing business in other countries. Most notably the West and maybe Japan as well.
They also have a partnership with big companies like Activision Blizzard for games like Overwatch, Hearthstone, Starcraft, Warcraft, and other Blizzard franchises. Mostly overseeing the Chinese release of these games. NetEase mostly makes their business in China, until now, that is. They’re moving to expand worldwide.
