After the mega success of its Sonic movie adaptations, Sega says Yakuza and Persona don't have to just be video game series.
2020's Sonic the Hedgehog grossed $306.8 million at the box office, a triumphant success considering the whole thing started with one of the most mercilessly mocked and universally hated renders of a video game character ever. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 performed even stronger, raking in a staggering $405.4 million at the box office.
In an interview with CNBC, Sega chief operating officer Shuji Utsumi said the company plans to capitalize on that potential by bringing more of its popular IPs to different mediums.
"We have other major IPs and, I cannot say too much about it but we are thinking of reviving other classical Sega IPs too. Right now there are two big IPs other than Sonic. One is Persona," he said. "And also our Yakuza titles. Yakuza is really unique. But that big one is also coming next year too.
"But also, as I say, we are trying to be in a lot of different kinds of business areas, like Roblox, movies. All these IPs can be somewhere else other than games soon."
Utsumi doesn't get into any further specifics about exactly what adaptations, if any, are in consideration at Sega, but a Yakuza crime-drama movie or TV show sounds excellent provided whatever studio is handed the rights can effectively pull of the tone. We already know about the divisive 2007 Like a Dragon movie, but there's definitely a lot more juice left in the series, especially with so many great games having released in the time since.
Persona has also already branched out of games, with the Persona 5 anime series having ran from April 2018 to March 2019. But as with Yakuza, there's plenty more material from the series to potentially adapt into multiple movies or one big TV show. Only time will reveal what Sega is cooking.
Here are all of the upcoming video game movies we know about.
