Home / Software & Gaming / Suda51 and Yakuza creator discuss benefits of NetEase acquisition

Suda51 and Yakuza creator discuss benefits of NetEase acquisition

NetEase has been a big name in the mobile gaming space for a while now, but in recent years the company has pushed into the console gaming space. Two of its biggest moves saw NetEase acquire Suda51’s Studio Grasshopper Manufacture alongside partnering with Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi for the opening of a new studio, following his departure from SEGA. Now, both creators have spoken on the many benefits afforded to them by these acquisitions.

In a lengthy interview conducted by VGC, Suda51 of No More Heroes and Lollipop Chainsaw fame discussed how NetEase has given him and his team the freedom needed to thrive, saying “Thanks to the support and backup we now get from NetEase, not only do we have a bigger studio and more people, the environment itself has become much easier to work in, it's become a lot easier to express my creativity and put more energy into being creative in general.”

Adding to this, Suda51 continued, “I mean, we do have a schedule and a budget and everything, but it's not like anyone's saying, ‘OK, the game has to be out on this day'. There's nobody [at NetEase] who thinks that if you get a game out as soon as possible, it's going to be good – they understand that's not how it works. They give top priority to creativity and quality, so it's great that we're able to have the freedom of time and schedule to really put the work into the games that we need to put into them, and they're really understanding about that.”

Toshihiro Nagoshi – known for Yakuza (Like a Dragon) and Super Monkey Ball – mirrored these sentiments, saying “The general environment [in this country] means it's hard to try new things in Japan, but NetEase is very ambitious and wants to expand its business by succeeding worldwide and including the console game category, which aligns with our ambition.”

The full interview can be found HERE and includes many more anecdotes regarding how working for NetEase has been good for the creators. All-in-all it seems as though both creators are so far happy with their choices and so hopefully their current in-development titles end up being their best yet. We will have to wait and see.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: What do you think of both creators? Are you excited to see what they are working on? Are the creators’ best days still ahead of them? Let us know your thoughts down below.

Become a Patron!

Check Also

Among Us 3D announced with free PC demo for Steam Next Fest

Among Us became widely popular in its original 2D form but the development team at InnerSloth is looking to change things up soon with the release of Among Us 3D. As the name suggests, this is the same social deduction game we all know and love, but in a 3D environment instead. 

We've noticed that you are using an ad blocker.

Thank you for visiting KitGuru. Our news and reviews teams work hard to bring you the latest stories and finest, in-depth analysis.

We want to be as informative as possible – and to help our readers make the best buying decisions. The mechanism we use to run our business and pay some of the best journalists in the world, is advertising.

If you want to support KitGuru, then please add www.kitguru.net to your ad blocking whitelist or disable your adblocking software. It really makes a difference and allows us to continue creating the kind of content you really want to read.

It is important you know that we don’t run pop ups, pop unders, audio ads, code tracking ads or anything else that would interfere with the KitGuru experience. Adblockers can actually block some of our free content, such as galleries!