Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Director Addresses Xbox Game Pass

RGG Studio's Strategy

RGG Studio is the Japanese developer behind the renowned Yakuza/Like a Dragon games. The studio accomplished the difficult task of extending and capturing its overseas audience with games that were at one point only popular in Japan. RGG Studio’s games all have generally favorable reviews and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth looks to continue this trend.

masayoshi-yokoyama-holding-kiryu-figurine

While the title will come out one month from now, gamers can hype themselves up by checking out the list of confirmed minigames in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

Yokoyama's Decision

In an interview via Automaton Media, Masayoshi Yokoyama revealed that, unlike Gaiden, Infinite Wealth would not be instantly released on Xbox Game Pass. The director mentioned that the decision to bring Like a Dragon Gaiden so early to Game Pass was motivated by the fact that the Studio wanted to expand overseas and make it easier for new players to get familiar with the legendary Yakuza, Kazuma Kiryu.

Looking back, this proved to be an efficient marketing tactic, as Gaiden received great reviews from critics, which made gamers more prone to trying the game out at a lower cost on Xbox Game Pass.

Yokoyama also admitted that he initially didn’t think that Gaiden would enjoy the huge amount of popularity that it managed to achieve in Japan, due to the fact that it is a much shorter game compared to the other titles in the franchise. In fact, Like a Dragon Gaiden was developed in only six months. The director called Gaiden RGG Studio's “best-selling title in recent times,” before hyping up the imminent release of Infinite Wealth by mentioning that the game’s story will take several days to complete and disclosing that the title may set a new record for pre-orders.

Game Pass and Future Plans

At the moment, there are no plans for Infinite Wealth to come to Game Pass. (...) for Gaiden, I thought of Game Pass as a way of 'handing overseas users our business card,' in other words, letting players new to the series enjoy the game and get to know Kiryu. Game Pass proved to be a very good method to invite new users to interact with the series.

Even though Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth will not join Xbox Game Pass on day one, chances are that it will arrive there at some point in time. This is likely, since all the former games in the series were previously available on Game Pass.