Toshihiro Nagoshi apparently produced and directed Shenmue in the final 6 months before release

S

Shadab

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Aug 18, 2018
https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/from-...ustrious-career-of-japanese-game-development/

I stumbled across this article when considering if Yakuza 6 would be a good stop gap for Shenmue 3. I can't accept that Yu Suzuki would let someone else take creative control 6 months before the release of Shenmue. Seeing his work ethic on S3, he is in the office 7 days a week and even sleeps there. So during the time of S1 he wouldn't have just given up, he would still be coming to work, so how would he let someone else make decisions while he is there.

This article has really been bothering me, either the information in it is false, or Sega took away control from Yu Suzuki on Shenmue 1, if so then that will be another reason for me to dislike Sega. My thoughts are that Nagoshi only helped push development along and didn't make any creative decisions, so I thought I would ask the question here.

Does anyone have more info on this considering this article is only from Dec 2018. Seems odd that I cannot find any mention of this anywhere else since the release of Shenmue 1, why would he mention it now that Shenmue 3 is in every most awaited games list for 2019. Or are there any other articles that can shed light on what Nagoshi's input was on Shenmue? As a supervisor he would just be managing staff and reporting back to Yu Suzuki.

I don't wish to start a Shenmue vs Yakuza war, I just didn't like the tone of the article and disagree with the info in it, so just wanted more clarity.

Thanks.
 
I saw this article when it came out last year. Who knows if some tone or context is being lost in print, or if Nagoshi is inflating his role (he's credited only as a supervisor, and not at all for Shenmue II), but there's an important distinction to be made:

A producer and director does not mean THE producer and director (and the article does indeed use "A"). If you go through Shenmue's credits (and in fact ANY game credits), you'll see roles are delegated and split through multiple unit directors and producers, team leads, etc. Yu's right hand man, Keiji Okayasu, is credited as a director, for example.

Yu still ran the show at the top level as the game's overall director and producer, and you can see him making the high ranking decisions surrounded by his sub-directors in the old NHK documentary about the production of the game. It sounds like Nagoshi was brought in as a "closer", to ensure the game shipped when it was supposed to (before the PS2 launch, as mandated by SEGA, which resulted in Shenmue being split into the two games we have now).

More or less, Nagoshi was brought in to strictly enforce the company line of "ship it". It's not totally uncommon for this to happen in game development, as there are similar stories for one of the BioShock games, the original Red Dead Redemption, etc.
 
They are talking about finishing the project because Yu Suzuki is a guy who wants to do more and more and more
and he wanted Shenmue as epic and big and detailed as possible
but you cant work like this, its not efficient. The money for the development process has to come from somewhere,
you cant invest unlimited ressources into one project and just let everyone work for months and months and months.
There has to be a point where you have to say "thats it". Doesnt matter if its finished or not.
Thats why they asked Nagoshi to help out.
Not to help Suzuki at his vision or to change the story. They had to finalize the project.
 
I have also read the article when it was published but was not thinking much about it I never thought that Nagoshi has much to say in the art style and presentation of Shenmue. I know some of his Yakuza games quite well and there as great as they are different compared to the Shenmue games. I like both of them.

But you cannot see any of Nagoshis style in Shenmue. So I always assumed it was a Suzuki production all along.

And if you read old magazine articles about Shen Mue and Project Berkley you will see how ambtious Yu was. I assume there were many things that were omited from the final game due to time and budget constraints.

ps: I wrote Shenmue wrong on purpose I am just accurate and refer to articles were Shenmue was still called Shen Mue . :giggle:
 
"Suzuki-san also knew he had to finish the game soon, whatever the final result. He’s the kind of person that, if he wants to do more, cannot stop himself, so someone must be there to do it for him. Our CEO knew that I was the only person he would listen to. Hard as it was to be asked to do it, I knew why it had to be me [laughs]."
Click to expand...

This quote explains the situation clearly, and it's the same story for a lot of other projects when a "closer" has to get involved.

Though I don't think the reason was money, as Shenmue was at the time still a blank cheque project, but rather that they were looking to preempt the PS2's release.
 
Thanks very much Spaghetti, Tosh and 9dragons, much appreciated. I now understand that he was a 'closer' and not 'The' Producer/Director making creative decisions.

Like how people become more crazy as they closer to a full moon, I'm becoming more sensitive the closer we get to August 27th lol.
 
In a 2012 Japanese interview with 4Gamer, the Head of R&D at Sega at the time (Hisashi Suzuki - no relation!) talked about wanting to get Shenmue wrapped up as soon as possible but, interestingly, his recollection is that it was actually Nagaoshi who approached him with the proposal:

"One day Nagoshi came to see me and said, 'If development on Shenmue continues like this, it will be never-ending. How about I bring it to an end.' And that's how it got finished."
 
Switch said:
In a 2012 Japanese interview with 4Gamer, the Head of R&D at Sega at the time (Hisashi Suzuki - no relation!) talked about wanting to get Shenmue wrapped up as soon as possible but, interestingly, his recollection is that it was actually Nagaoshi who approached him with the proposal:

"One day Nagoshi came to see me and said, 'If development on Shenmue continues like this, it will be never-ending. How about I bring it to an end.' And that's how it got finished."
Click to expand...

That does make sense, even in this interview he mentioned wanting his own division and the project getting too much for him. Plus the sooner Shenmue was over the sooner he could pitch Yakuza I guess...
 
What I want to know is what was Tetsuya Mizuguchi's role on the first Shenmue.
 
He probably means he oversaw the final months of the first as Suzuki focussed on the group that was working on Shenmue II.

At that stage of development it really is just doubling down on bug fixing and whatnot. He would’ve had some degree of control, but probably not what you lot are thinking.

Thing is, the sheer number of people involved in these games means there coulda been one or two more that “produced and directed” for certain periods, albeit in a very specific and limited capacity.
 
Nagoshi is probably Suzuki's equal at this point, or at least worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence.

F Zero
Daytona
SpikeOut
Yakuza Series

Monkey Ball
Seems to have done a great job leading Sega's creative teams and designing profitable games

I'm not offended.
 
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mjqjazzbar said:
Nagoshi is probably Suzuki's equal at this point
[...]
Click to expand...
Contentious talk there, but I can't really agree.

Obviously nobody in their right mind would talk down Nagoshi's contributions and successes, but Yu is a very rare example of an (often unappreciated) industry giant who helped shape video games with his approach to design and understanding of technology. His success goes beyond just spawning a number of mega-hits for SEGA, and I think in one hundred years when someone writes the history book about the formative period of video games, Yu's name will be one that comes up constantly from the Japanese side.

Well, if there's any justice and it acknowledges the arcades instead of just consoles, consoles, consoles. In any case, he's one-of-a-kind. The right guy, at the right time, under the right conditions. There will never be another Yu Suzuki.

Even now, Yu is pretty unique in that he's an older Japanese game developer who still gets stuck in down in the trenches. Management structures usually airlift senior staff into production and management duties or corporate roles, which is where Nagoshi is now, so someone with Yu's age and experience still directing and designing games is really rare.
 
Yu still has his pure-love+Mastery of the craft. Miyamoto was his only real rival, but even then...Shiguru is no longer that ambitious anymore but more dedicated to raising/mentoring the next-gen dev for nintendo. Yu still having that fire lit even now at his age has now made him surpass colleagues and competitions from his prime-time Era.
 
Yup, Yu's games weren't just popular and technically incredible, they were hugely formative for gamers and younger designers in a fledgling games industry.

The only people who can truly compare are those who also had a major influence on the direction of the industry, such as Miyamoto, David Crane and other Atari pioneers, some of the early Taito and Namco designers etc.

Although, thinking about it, Yu did have a longer and better run than most of his contemporaries, besides Miyamoto.
 
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"Suzuki-san also knew he had to finish the game soon, whatever the final result. He’s the kind of person that, if he wants to do more, cannot stop himself, so someone must be there to do it for him. Our CEO knew that I was the only person he would listen to. Hard as it was to be asked to do it, I knew why it had to be me [laughs]."
Click to expand...

"One day Nagoshi came to see me and said, 'If development on Shenmue continues like this, it will be never-ending. How about I bring it to an end.' And that's how it got finished."
Click to expand...

This is unfolding like the actual plot of a Yakuza game... ?
 
What I said was by no means meant as an attack or slight against Yu Suzuki. I just think Nagoshi's had a terrific career and it's been fun watching his transformation (transformation in more than one way ;)) into who he is today. He worked under Suzuki for a long time, so I think there's a lot to be said for that as well.

The guy was behind Daytona USA, arguably one of Sega's top 5 arcade games of all time. If he's not Suzuki's equal, he's in second place as far as Sega is concerned.
 
Yu had a ton to do with Daytona too; he WAS a Producer and Lead on the game as well, don't forget.

Arguably? It is DEFINITELY a top 3 Sega Arcade Racer and frankly, it is the best, IMO.

So you're slighting BOTH of them!!!!! :mad::mad::mad:


lol just kidding, but I do indeed think Daytona is the best Arcade Racer, followed by SHO and OutRun.

The big three of Sega are:

  1. Yu Suzuki
  2. Yuji Naka
  3. Nagoshi
And that isn't up for debate; Yu is more skilled and important to the industry, but didn't make as much money per game, as Naka did and thus, isn't as popular.

Nagoshi looks IDENTICAL now, to what Bro. Korn has looked like for a few decades now, too lol:

tumblr_mocqsfJq3W1rsl35ao1_1280.jpg


Bro.KORN-1.jpg


Can't find his Iron Chef pic from the 90s, where he looks even MORE like Nagoshi,
 
Oh, for sure.

He looks hilarious. You know, he's only what, five or six years younger than Yu Suzuki. lol
 
To me the only dev that compares to Yu Suzuki is Kojima. They're very similar in the sense that they are very unconventional in their game design and it shows in every one of their projects.

I will say though that in a different time period, if Shenmue got released on the Saturn, Suzuki would've got the same praise and recognition that Kojima did on the first MGS on PlayStation. Especially when you consider that Saturn Shenmue was miles ahead of MGS visually.
 
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