Judgment has surge in sales after Pierre Taki's arrest

Earlier this month it emerged that Japanese actor Pierre Taki was arrested on suspicion of cocaine use, resulting in Sega's game Judgment being pulled from sale in Japan and Square Enix patching him out as the voice of Olaf in Kingdom Hearts III, and during a recent livestream Sega chief creative officer Toshihiro Nagoshi spoke about the former following the arrest, as translated by Gematsu.

Nagoshi said he was surprised to hear about Taki, and that he received tons of calls and messages as the news emerged. This meant Sega had to discuss how to deal with the issues, resulting in the Judgment's sales being halted.

He also addresses criticism that says they went too far by canceling sales, and that he sees it from both sides. Nagoshi adds he wouldn't have made that decision if it was an older game, but since it was just after release the priorities were different.

We also find out that there was a surge in demand following the arrest, since the game reached number three on Amazon's sales, and sell-through was about 97%, meaning that the worldwide inventory of the Japanese version is almost gone (this was released in December last year).

Fans in the West can first get their hands on the game for PS4 on June 21, and while the character of Kyohei Hamura has been tweaked for this release, Nagoshi says that Hamura won't appear in a sequel if there ever is one.

And for those who think that Judgment 2 and 3 have already been decided as sequels, he says they're "talking nonsense" and that "absolutely none of that is true."

What do you think caused the surge in sales?