Nagoshi recently spoke to Siliconera about the differences between the PS4 and PS3 versions of Yakuza: Ishin. He prefaces his observations by stating that it was coincidental that the PS4’s release was such that it became possible to develop a PS4 version of Ishin. This was not accomplished without much effort to meet the Japanese launch deadline, he claims.
Nagoshi then explained that taking advantage of the PS4’s unique features was a constant focal point for the development team. He also revealed that Sony did make some suggestions to his team about elements to incorporate into the PS4 version.
Beyond talk about features, Nagoshi made an interesting statement regarding the PS4’s power and working with it:
“With high performance hardware comes the ability to make things more expressive. And the more time the modelers are able to pump into doing so, the more expressive the results we’ll be able to get. However, we do have a limited development budget and time. So from a producer’s standpoint, deciding how much of the hardware’s high performance we should take advantage of was particularly difficult.”
Coupled with his earlier statement on the timing of the PS4’s launch, it at least means that Yakuza: Ishin’s PS4’s version doesn’t represent the full rendering capacity of the PS4 and that the development team could have accomplished more with additional time. Gaming enthusiasts have made plenty of observations suggesting the PS4 version could have looked better. The PS4 is a powerful machine; Nagoshi calls it ten times more powerful than its predecessor, the PS3. The fact that two versions were being developed concurrently across console generations probably ate into the team’s time and budget, too.
That being said, the PS4 version does still contain the superior graphical experience. Fights are smoother and more effects are rendered. It runs at 60 frames per second on PS4 compared to the PS3’s 30 frames per second. However, Nagoshi stresses that the development spent considerable care on the PS3 version and that he believes the PS3 experience is one fans will still be happy with. In addition, he teases special bonus content for the PS3 version if the hard drive contains save data of previous Yakuza games on it.
With all of this in mind, Ishin will indeed be the last PS3 Yakuza game. A year ago, Nagoshi remarked that Yakuza 5 was the last PS3 Yakuza title in the series. However, the somewhat ambiguous word choice could suggest Yakuza 5 was to be the last mainline entry on the PS3. It’s likely Nagoshi’s team had already been working on the PS4 version by the time that statement was made. But this new Siliconera interview seems to suggest Ishin’s development initially started on the PS3.
Yakuza: Ishin is a PS4 launch title and both the PS3 and PS4 versions were released on February 22. The demo is also available on PSN.
Credit to Siliconera for the interview.