- No they didn't. Again, there has been 0 proof or even knowledge that that happened. Guess Naka left to from Prope because of the same thing? The company evolved and the old guys all moved on... ALL of them moved on, outside of Mie Kumagai, Nagoshi and few others. Kojima left Konami, Miyamoto has produced 2 games since 2010, etc. They all get kicked upstairs/move on once they hit a certain age and the old guard of executives has to move on. That's how business works FFS.
- I already showed (with numbers) that the first WAS a success in Japan and 2 is the best-selling title in the series, in Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza_(video_game)#cite_note-64. 1 sold over 1 million, 2 sold over 1 million, 3 sold either 1 million or 950,000 or whatever. 5 was like 3, 6 sold over 1 million, 0 sold over 1 million, why are you contradicting factual numbers? It only had a lull for 4, 5 and Dead Souls.
- Virtua Fighter 5 was getting updates and re-releases for 6 years after it came out. The AM2 team then largely dissolved after that, hence why there are no new titles. Sonic sells super-well still to this day and is a cash cow on mobile.
Any other series you have aside from VF, which you've already been contradicted on with facts?
-All Sega people that decide to left the company, were forced because they weren't free anymore to do the things they wanted.
While what you said appplied for Naka and a few other ones (like Hisao Oguchi who accepted the new administrative roles), that wasn't the case for others.
People like Mizuguchi, Nagagawa, Ohba, Ueda etc. all left because they couldn't do anymore what they did previously.
In the case of Yu Suzuki, all his projects in later years were cancelled and he wasn't able to continue Shenmue series inside Sega. He was put in an administrative role that resulted in reality in just a fake position since he wasn't able to do much, unlike Nagoshi that had the same position at the time already had free reign for some reason (i have my theories on this).
That forced Yu to leave Sega, if you don't know how big companies works, this is a common practice whan they want someone out, make one in an unconfortable position so he will leave on his own.
Same happened to Kojima, Konami was even worst there, hindering the development of MGS5 and even physically obstruct the movements of Kojima as a person inside the company.
-You and wiki did confusion with numbers, I followed your links and the real number are:
2005
-Yakuza 1 - 232.650
2006
-Yakuza 1 - 345.323 (the count start from 2005)
-Yakuza 1 the best 275.340
The real total for Yakuza 1 is 620.663, counting 2 releases!
Also there are no evidence in the sources about the 1 million claim, and it's not the case unless you count both Yakuza 1 AND Yakuza 2.
So no, Yakuza series only reached the 1 million mark on just few occasion, and always thanks to multiple reprints.
-Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is from 2010, it's 10 years now.
Sonic games sells bad, they used to sell from 3 to 5 million at any release, now they are well under the 1 million mark as average.
Ever wondered why Sega make all that noise with Sonic Mania that barely reached a mediocre 1 million mark?