IT House reported on January 24 that Minoru Nagoshi and Daisuke Sato, the chief producers of the "Like Dragon" series of games, left Sega last year, and today, a new studio led by Minoru Nagoshi is formed, called Nagoshi Studio. Notably, the studio is fully funded by Chinese internet and gaming company NetEase. This also confirms the rumors that they joined NetEase before.
The new studio, Nagoshi Studio, is headquartered in Tokyo, and the members of the studio are basically former ka-old employees and major contributors to the "Like Dragon" series of games, including Daisuke Sato, Kazuto Hosokawa, Masao Shirozaki and other bigwigs.
In a previous interview, Minoru Nagoshi spoke in detail about why he chose to leave Sega and join NetEase. He said he wanted to do something different and said it was his desire to create more impactful games outside of Japan, while noting that the focus of the new studio would remain in Japan for the time being. Minoru Nagoshi said the new studio will have more freedom to develop the game without considering Sega's broader business plans and budgets, and believes NetEase will give the new studio full creative freedom.
![NetEase is preparing to set up a third overseas game studio[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)