On this month’s SegaNama stream, Toshihiro Nagoshi announced that as of now,Yakuza: Like a Dragon,sold more than 300,000 copies, digital and physical included.The game is known asRyu Ga Gotoku 7 Hikari to Yami no Yukuein Japan and launched there on PlayStation 4 on January 17. He also chatted about PS4 exclusiveProject Sakura Warsand the game’s sales.
Toshihiro Nagoshi first mentioned that many players who boughtYakuza: Like a Dragonwere buying a game of the series for the first time. He also mentioned that digital sales are higher than usual for theYakuzaseries, showing some of the buyers are part of a different player base than usual. The fact that the protagonist changed also made it easier for newcomers to grab the game.Yakuza: Like a Dragontopped weekly charts at release, and I believe 300,000 copies sold isn’t bad at all considering the RPG and protagonists change.
As forProject Sakura Wars, it’s been over a month since it launched on July 05, 2025, and Toshihiro Nagoshi mentioned he wishes the game sells a bit more. According to Kadokawa’s sales estimatespublishedby Dengeki Online,Project Sakura Warssold 178,426 copies as of June 17, 2025. Note that these estimates don’t include digital sales. I believe this is pretty high considering the series didn’t have a new game for 15 years, meaning most young people in Japan have no idea whatSakura Taisenis. Moreover, certain older fans weren’t necessarily on board asProject Sakura Warsworks both as a sequel and a reboot with new characters.
Toshihiro Nagoshi mentioned one of the biggest complaints regardingProject Sakura Warsis how the game isn’t fully voiced. I’ve personally played until the beginning of chapter 3 for now, and while most of the game is voiced, the fact that some scenes feature the characters being very well animated and expressive, but voiceless, is a real shame. Nagoshi added that fully voicing a game is difficult for a number of reasons, such as the game’s volume, but they do realize that maybe they should have steeled themselves and went with full voice acting. Nagoshi mentioned Sega will definitely consider developing more fully-voiced games in the future.
Fully voicing a game isn’t a simple matter especially with dialogue-heavy games such asShin Sakura Taisen.And while the game isn’t fully voiced, most of protagonist Seijuro’s lines are voiced. Meanwhile, previous protagonist Ogami was almost never voiced in the past games. Having a game fully voiced can also mean fewer dialogues. For example, I’m perfectly fine withSuper Robot Warsgames not being fully voiced. If not, the games would definitely have fewer crossover interactions. Then you have examples such asPersona 5 Royal, and how I find disappointing it doesn’t add more voiced events outside of the new content of the game. And then you have games such asFire Emblem Three Houseswho are fully voiced despite its gargantuan dialogues. In my opinion, that might have been prioritized over other aspects such as the graphics, which is fine by me as I don’t care much about that aspect compared to story and gameplay.
At the end of the stream, Toshihiro Nagoshi mentioned he’s happy they made the switch to RPG. How it made him and the team grow and learn many things. He again mentioned that he doesn’t know yet if the nextYakuzagame will be an RPG or not. But in any case, he’s particularly happy many players enjoyedYakuza LAD, a stark contrast compared to the initial negative reactions when the RPG change was revealed. In multiple interviews after the Japanese release of the game, Toshihiro Nagoshishared similar commentsregarding thefuture of the seriesand onthe game’s development.
PS4 exclusiveYakuza: Like a Dragonwill be coming west later on in 2020.Project Sakura Wars, known asShin Sakura Taisenin Japan, will be launching in Spring 2020 in the west. you may check outour translated let’s playif you’re too hyped to wait. Soon after the game’s release, Sega announced the cumulative game sales of theSakura Taisenseries in Japan since its debut in 1996 reached over 4 million.
Shin Sakura Taisen The Animationwill also start airing in April 2020. ASakura Taisenlive stream will be held on January 29, with new details on the anime.We’ll cover it as always.
SegaNama are streams held monthly with Sega’s Toshihiro Nagoshi and MCAyana Tsubaki. We covered thepast SegaNama streams on DualShockers,and this month’s stream is included below. Toshihiro Nagoshi spoke aboutYakuza: Like a Dragon’s sales at the beginning, and aboutProject Sakura Warsduring the game’s corner at 32:00. Kazuhiro Nakaya, who voices Ichiban, also joined the stream during theYakuza: Like a Dragoncorner at 46:00. He chatted about the game’s recording, in particular, so you should check it out if you’re a fan. I sadly don’t have the time to summarize this part.
