Ayyyy
So Tim says in the ep that Yakuza didn’t really have a pitch, and Frank expands on that saying that no pitch could have contained all of the actual elements that ended up in the game, and that sounds right to me
But funny thing happened literally yesterday I found this Games Radar post from 2018 that I think is pulling from Nagoshi’s columns in Edge where he talks about the most basic idea he had for the game and then pitching it multiple times at Sega, as well as pitching it to Microsoft and Nintendo, before Sega did finally approve it under the new Sammy management (Luke Plunkett at Kotaku also references Edge interview with pitches to multiple companies in an interview in Edge earlier in 2018, maybe it was all from that article?)
Which really makes me wonder, what exactly was in all of those pitches !?
For some extra BTW, I found that Games Radar article cuz started Googling to find any documentation I could to support that idea that’s been floating around (and that I at some point absorbed myself) that Yakuza is a spiritual successor to Shenmue, but started making less sense to me once I started to consider that there’s now currently Shenmue sequels being made, but that was probably already pretty clear to y’all already
Also, a bunch of homies here in NYC have been posting pictures on Instagram of an extremely homemade-looking sign hanging outside the Times Square Olive Garden letting people know they’re doing take-out, it’s like neon green spray paint on a sheet that they’ve fastened to some scaffolding, and it is very amusing. Nothing is coming up in Google search but I’m a post a photo if I can find one because it looks very cool
Also also, I’ve heard about friends of friends going there ironically and making fun of other people just out for a meal to enjoy themselves and it still pisses me off. I could go on for days about terrible classism in NYC, but I still agree with Tim that it is confounding that people go there over other options only blocks away that are very old, family-owned businesses that are at least as good and only a little more expensive… I mean I would certainly recommend those other places over the Olive Garden if someone is trying to eat Italian food in Times Square but it’s straight up mean to think of people as lesser-than just because they go to the Olive Garden. In fact, besides having extremely high revenue, I also really like this profile of a bartender there by drinks writer Robert Simonson that supports the idea that this place is somewhat unique. The impression I get is that this particular Olive Garden has turned itself into that unlikely thing, the individual location of a chain that is itself an institution
Which I don’t think conflicts with Frank’s criticism of Assassin’s Creed and the modern Ubisoft approach to the series, because the general assessment of Olive Garden’s relationship to “authentic” (or authentic(!)) Italian food still stands
Anyways yeah this one really hit a lot of major points of interest for myself. I wasn’t aware of the pod during the first run, I didn’t pay attention to any podcasts during that time at all, but I’m glad y’all are back !