In last week's financial update for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, Sega wrote that remasters would become a part of the future to its Entertainment Contents business. Those titles, said Sega, help to build out global player bases for its franchises and have the added bonus of keeping beloved games alive on newer consoles.
"To capitalize effectively on our abundant IP
assets...we will further
develop these IPs by means of remakes, remastering, and reboots, etc.," wrote Sega. "We will also be offering them to subscription-based services and other forms of monetization
across multiple channels."
As of the fiscal year that concluded at the end of September 2022, Sega has shipped nearly 4 million units of its various remasters, remakes, and spinoffs.
The publisher's high-profile remasters of the moment are of Atlus' Persona 5 Royal, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 3 Portable. During its recent release, Persona 5 Royal launched on Xbox Game Pass, and both Golden and Portable will follow suit with their respective releases.
Concerning remakes, developer Ryu Ga Gotoku is developing a PlayStation remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin. When that title originally released in 2014, it was a previously Japan-only installment of the Like a Dragon franchise (formerly known as Yakuza).
Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama recently attributed Ishin's Western release to the franchise's growing player base over the years. According to him, overseas fans and Sega's US marketing team requested Ishin be localized, but market research wasn't enough to justify the effort.
"But from around 2017, the Ryu ga Gotoku series as a whole started to get recognition, and the demand for Ishin increased," said Yokoyama.
Though Like a Dragon's fame has grown naturally over the years in the West, it certainly doesn't hurt that Xbox Game Pass, have featured all the mainline Dragon games, some which were remasters of earlier installments. Yokoyama was frank in saying that the service "contributed largely to the increase in audience.”