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The story
Nagoshi Studio, founded by Toshihiro Nagoshi after he left Sega in 2023, has effectively vanished after roughly 10 months of silence, according to a reporter at the overseas outlet VGC. NetEase, which had been funding the studio, reportedly pulled its backing, leaving the game needing around $45 million to complete. Nagoshi himself is said to be job hunting at other studios. On 5ch, reactions ranged from comparisons with Hideo Kojima — who also left Sega but has been able to keep developing thanks to a partnership with Microsoft — to speculation about what’s next for Nagoshi personally and concern over the fate of the studio’s rank-and-file employees.
Nagoshi Studio, the studio founded by Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, has reportedly “vanished” after around 10 months of silence.
NetEase has pulled its funding, and Nagoshi is said to need roughly $45 million to finish the game.
VGC reporter Andy Robinson says Nagoshi Studio has effectively ceased to exist: “Nagoshi Studio, not yet officially announced, [but] it’s dead.” He also says he’s heard that Toshihiro Nagoshi has recently been job hunting at other studios.
Source: x.com / Original post here
What people said
Well, Microsoft's already got a Like a Dragon (Yakuza) studio in its pocket, so they don't need a Nagoshi Studio too.
Microsoft's been partnered with Sega for years now, so they already know the inside story — they know Like a Dragon isn't that popular.
I recall seeing on gaming boards (Geha) people complaining that his severance from old Square was something like ¥200 million, even while the company was laying off tons of temp workers — "give me a break" type reactions.
Apparently Sakaguchi also held a decent amount of old Square stock, so he was able to cash that out and retire (what we'd now call "FIRE").
Sakaguchi himself mentioned in the liner notes for Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey's soundtrack CD that after retiring he spent his time just surfing.
Yuji Naka too, while we're at it.
They're even cutting Kojima loose, so there's no way that'll happen.
Kojima
Nagoshi
Harada
There are actually a lot more than that — just among people who moved to Sony you've got Capcom's Ono, Square Enix's Hashimoto, and so on. Though most of the people who went independent with Sony's backing have either been pushed out of the industry or fallen on hard times.
Kojima partnered with Microsoft and kept developing.
Nagoshi is doing "shukatsu" — though at his age it sounds more like "shuukatsu," the term for end-of-life preparations (both pronounced the same way).
Harada took Saudi money, started developing at an SNK subsidiary, and picked a fight with his old home Bandai Namco.
> picked a fight with his old home Bandai Namco
Did he do something stupid? lol
In an overseas interview he let it slip that none of the higher-ups at that company even play games.
Hard to say. I have no idea about his actual finances, but it's probably either he's got a ridiculous amount of money left over, or he's buried in a ridiculous amount of debt.
If it's the latter, he'd have to keep running flat out for the rest of his life — that'd be hell.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Toshihiro Nagoshi left Sega in 2023 and launched Nagoshi Studio with backing from China’s NetEase, but completing the new title reportedly required several billion yen in additional funding, and NetEase’s decision to pull its support appears to have led to the studio’s effective dissolution. As game development costs climb, mid-sized studios increasingly depend on outside funding, and the risk that one change in a backer’s strategy can halt a project entirely has become more visible in recent years. The thread contrasted this with Hideo Kojima’s studio, which also relied on major backing but was able to keep developing thanks to a partnership with Microsoft, while Nagoshi Studio failed to secure a partner. Some posters pointed out that the more pressing concern isn’t really what happens to Nagoshi himself — he’s the public face — but rather the job prospects of the studio’s unnamed rank-and-file employees, framing the real issue as the gap between the spotlighted figurehead and the staff left in the shadows when a “star developer’s studio” folds. At the same time, many of the jabs about Nagoshi’s personal life, appearance, or finances were little more than baseless speculation, so this article focuses on reactions grounded in fact.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “[Sad News] Nagoshi Studio Vanishes — Nagoshi Is Job Hunting“.
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