Yu never plays video games, even his own. He made this very clear in one or two of his past interviews.
He claimed that by not playing them, he is not influenced by them and as such can bring something original & unique to his own works.

At Gamescom 2017, I asked Yu Suzuki if he has played through Shenmue I privately, after it was released. His answer was yes.

(As I don’t speak Japanese, I can’t be certain that the interpreter translated my question correctly. But the interpreter repeated the question to make sure that he catched it correctly, which he did, so I have no reason to doubt it.)

TheThirdComing wrote: Did anything Shenmue releated come from that, I like Adam but I don't know if I can fish through 2 hours of footage :P

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