One of the most appealing features of the Yakuza / Like A Dragon series is the inclusion of classic Sega titles from yesteryear, a feature borrowed from the legendary Shenmue franchise.
Via the Yakuza series, we've seen a host of legendary games get a new lease of life on modern-day hardware, including Daytona 2, The Ocean Hunter and even ToyLets, a device fitted to urinals in male toilets which allowed the user to play a series of minigames, the outcome of which was decided by strength and direction of urination.
This has predictably led some fans to ask if there's a chance of these games getting individual releases. Sadly, according to Yutaka Ito, head of technology at the Yakuza Studio, and Ryosuke Horii, producer and director of Yakuza Kiwami 3 / Yakuza 3 Gaiden: Dark Ties, that's looking very unlikely.
Speaking to Automaton Media (thanks, @allcityslopshop.com), Ito said:
"Incidentally, we often hear people say, "I want to sell retro games individually," but I think it would be extremely difficult to actually make that a viable business in this day and age. Sega is a big company, and the costs of releasing a single piece of software are high. However, if there are other companies interested in licensing out Sega games, please feel free to contact us."
Horii adds:
"If we were to sell older games individually, we wouldn't be able to set high prices, and there would also be limits to how many people we could reach. Conversely, it's precisely because they're part of the larger Yakuza franchise that we're able to include older titles without being bound by those kinds of business constraints. By releasing these titles into the world once again through Yakuza, I feel like we're doing something valuable, like giving back to gaming culture."
Ito says he personally receives many requests for games to be released solo, but it makes him feel "sad" when those same people say they don't need the main game and only want to play the retro titles. "It's only thanks to the hard work of the Yakuza development team that we've been able to include so many retro games," he counters.
In the same interview, the topic of Dreamcast and Saturn games is mentioned. It's good news on the former and bad news on the latter, as Ito explains:
"This is the first time we've introduced an emulator for the arcade board "NAOMI," and since NAOMI is compatible with the Dreamcast, it may be possible that in the future Dreamcast titles will be playable within "Yakuza."
The Sega Saturn's hardware is complex, so developing an emulator is technically quite difficult. The source code for the titles from that time remains, so it might actually be quicker to remake them to run on current consoles. Also, there aren't many titles released for arcade boards compatible with the Sega Saturn, so it's difficult to stock them in game centers."
Finally, on the subject of Genesis/Mega Drive games appearing in future games, Ito points out that this particular itch has been scratched by Sega's Mega Drive Mini and Mega Drive Mini 2. "So, if there is a title you want to play, we hope you will enjoy it on those."
You can read the full interview here, but it's in Japanese, so you'll need to run it through a translation service.