Yakuza/Like A Dragon’s painstaking arcade emulation nets award for programmer

I can’t say I normally pay close attention to the Computer Entertainment Developers Conference (CEDEC), but this year (as spotted by Twitter user gosokkyu), it is presenting the Engineering Division Award for Excellence to Hitoshi Iizawa for their very important work in arcade emulation. Not just any arcade emulation, but emulation of the early 3D-era Sega Model 2 and Model 3 platforms.

In terms of game preservation, arcade games are a difficult area. Each game could be on its own hardware or hardware variation. While console emulation focuses on recreating the hardware in a way that can run its library of games, a lot of arcade games have to be approached individually. Add to that the fact that 3D game hardware is much harder to emulate, and it can be a struggle.

The emulation was done specifically to fill out the arcades in the games by Ryu ga Gotoku studios. Games in the Yakuza/Like a Dragon/Judgment series had full recreations of Sega’s old arcade titles, such as Fighting Vipers, Virtua Fighter 2, and Sega Bass Fishing. Not only are the games present, but the cabinets themselves (such as the Sega Blast City) are presented in painstaking detail.

The award states that it’s in recognition of Iizawa’s technical expertise, as well as for presenting the buried games for today’s players. His work in porting old arcade games goes back to the ‘00s where he worked on Sega Ages 2500: Virtua Fighter 2 and later helped port Daytona USA to PS3 and Xbox 360.

There has been some progress in emulating Model 2 and Model 3 games by fan communities. However, having an official means to play these games is always a plus. I would like to see some titles from these platforms make their way to storefronts, rather than being contained as games within a game. Hopefully, this work will eventually lead to that.