Like a Dragon studio head ‘surprised’ by Infinite Wealth’s strong early sales

videogameschronicle.com:

The director of Like a Dragon developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio says he’s surprised at the initial sales pattern for the latest game in the series, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

In an interview with 4gamer (translated by Automaton),  Masayoshi Yokoyama – who was also executive director on Infinite Wealth and helped write the original story – says he didn’t expect the game to sell at such a fast rate from day one.

As Yokoyama explains, the Like a Dragon series – previously known as Yakuza in the west – tends to sell at a slow rate, as word of mouth spreads and the audience eventually gets round to buying it.

However, this time the game shipped one million copies within its first week, a rate Yokoyama wasn’t expecting.

“We gave a press release about how [Infinite Wealth] sold over one million copies worldwide in one week following its release, but it’s really a speed we have never experienced before,” he explains

“Like a Dragon games sell in the long run, rather than right off the bat. This has been the case ever since the series’ early days. It has an adult player base, after all, so there’s no rush, you know?

“People hear about the games from their friends, they happen to come across them, and that’s how the titles grow. That’s why the way [Infinite Wealth] started off was quite surprising to me.”

VGC’sLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth review says the game is “the series at its very best”, calling it a “can’t-miss RPG”.

“Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is one of the best RPGs we’ve played in years,” we concluded. “Excellent combat, a wonderful cast of characters, and a willingness to be incredibly weird make it absolutely unmissable.

“Not only that, but it’s so full to the brim with things to do, we could have probably spent another three weeks with it and not finished everything.”