Edge Online: Toshihiro Nagoshi on the new Yakuza game and the future of Japanese game development.

It’s a fantastic interview that’s well worth the read with a rare insight into Japanese game development.

The worst news of all is his confirmation that Yakuza 5 will likely not ever be localized because of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s small size, focused development and the games sheer size;

Do you plan to eventually localise Yakuza 5 for the West?

We don’t have a plan for that at the moment. The Yakuza Studio team is a fixed size, and we have to choose between forging ahead with the next game or localising the one that just came out. This time the size of the game was so large, so rather than localising that game we chose to focus our manpower on the new game. But we get asked about it a lot. We get lots of complaints!

…

So Isshin could possibly be localised someday?

I’d definitely love to reach the whole world, haha, if we have the manpower and the money to do it.

Take those as you will but it basically confirms that they have no solid plans and development has not even started.

A grim day for all Yakuza fans. Tweet @Sega and @ryugagotoku to let them know what a bad idea this is!