China’s NetEase is in advanced negotiations with Sega, according to Bloomberg, to acquire Japanese Yakuza director Toshihiro Nagoshi. As far as we know, there is no talk of grabbing the rights to the series.

Nagoshi’s takeover bid shows that NetEase is in the process of expanding outside the Chinese market, Bloomberg notes. In China itself, the gaming market is highly regulated by the government. In addition to objective oversight, the government, for example, limitations in About how long minors can play online and how much money kids can spend on games.

Nagoshi will have his own team at NetEase to develop new games. It’s not known what type of games these are, but given Nagoshi’s experience, they could be games aimed at the Japanese market. According to Bloomberg sources, he has not signed a contract yet and his exact duties have yet to be recorded.

Nagoshi has been with Sega since 1989. He is currently the creative director there and heads up the Ryu Ga Gotoku studio that makes Yakuza games. He was heavily involved in producing all eight of the Yakuza games, mostly as a director or producer.

NetEase is one of the largest gaming companies in the world, with a turnover of more than 7 billion euros last year. The company is large mainly with free games in China, but is also increasingly targeting international markets. Blizzard collaborates with NetEase on Diablo Immortal And in September there will be one The Lord of the Rings game for smartphones by NetEase, which are published all over the world. Moreover NetEase invested in Quantic Dream, the studio behind Detroit: Become Human.