Yakuza 5 announced

Sega has announced the development of Yakuza 5 and the formation of Yakuza Studio.

Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi heads up the new team. According to Japanese magazine Famitsu (translated by Andriasang), Yakuza Studio is not a Yakuza-exclusive developer, despite its name. In fact, its first game is Binary Domain.

Following that game's launch, Yakuza Studio will create Yakuza Black Panther 2 for PlayStation Portable, the sequel to the PSP spin-off. In Japan it launches in spring 2012.

Meanwhile, development on Yakuza 5 is described as at an early stage. Sega has only just decided to make the game, so details are scarce. Nagoshi is holding a press conference to formally announce the creation of Yakuza Studio, and may reveal more information.

The last game in the PlayStation-exclusive series to launch in the UK was Yakuza 4, which Eurogamer awarded an 8/10 earlier this year.

At Gamescom this month Nagoshi told Eurogamer Sega's long-running open world franchise was unlikely to ever be ported across to Microsoft's Xbox 360.

Nagoshi also said Yakuza: Of the End, the spin-off game recently released in Japan, was the last of that style of Yakuza.

"The basic style and mechanics is really an old game that started on PS2 and continued on PS3," Nagoshi said, "Times keep changing, and if we started on some new games they would be in a very different shape - so the last game was the end of one particular era."