Yakuza 3 won't see the light of day in the U.S.
- Posted July 30th, 2009 at 10:09 EDT by Mike Harradence
- 3,007 views
- 27 Comments
Website Examiner.com has gotten the scoop on SEGA’s plans for a possible western release of PlayStation brawler Yakuza 3, and unfortunately, it appears the Japanese publisher still has no plans to localise the game for the U.S. market.
The reason? Simple – previous installments in the franchise just haven’t taken off across the pond, with Yakuza 2 shifting a disappointing 40,000 units following its launch in 2007. Obviously, it wouldn’t make much of any business sense to release Yakuza 3 in that territory following the underwhelming performance of its predecessors – and naturally, that same philosophy undoubtedly applies to Europe, where the games sadly didn’t fair much better.
Interestingly, the news comes just days after the company announced development of a fourth entry in the PS3 exclusive franchise. Better start learning Japanese and fork out for an import copy, then.
Comments
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Bandersnatch |
Murdersimulator- 10:23am BST - July 30th, 2009
- 1
That sucks, I hope someone else could pick it up, like Atlus.
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spectre_assassin
- 10:34am BST - July 30th, 2009
- 2
As if they don't premake the game with English subtitles we put other games in other languages??? I'll import it no worries if it has english subtitles and the menu can be changed to english...... c'mon... it's 2009 the technologty should be standard
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PSU_fail
- 11:37am BST - July 30th, 2009
- 5
For those wanting just a simple translation to English. Have you ever heard a Japanese National translate from Kanji to English? If they are rushing it, it will sound very backwards. If you can get pics online, look up Japanese with English writing, or some form of that. The T-shirts with english writing make no sense to us Westerners. In fact, I saw a hat just a couple weeks ago in the Maori Mall that had a rebel flag and said "A Peace Symbol".
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AaronSOLDIER |
AaronSOLDIER- 12:19pm BST - July 30th, 2009
- 7
Should come to Europe though, it has big sales in France alone
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akiraburn |
akiraburn- 2:38pm BST - July 30th, 2009
- 10
Hey, not to cause any waves, but I really think you guys should change the title around a bit on this article. The CURRENT plans don't include localizing, but it hasn't been ruled out either. The writer also has written an update right on the article stating,
"To clarify: It was earlier reported that Sega has no plans to release Yakuza 3 stateside. By viewing upcoming release list, Sega still hasn’t made any mention of an upcoming release or revealed plans to release it stateside. However, the statements made earlier are not official Sega statements. Based on Yakuza 2 sales figures, it’s his personal opinion that the game will not sell if it sees release stateside."
Basically all this guy did, was make a completely innaccurate claim, that may end up being completely false. He may or may not have a friend on the inside, but the point is, that unless it actually came from Sega, there is still a chance that Yakuza 3 would make it outside of Japan. So I think we should wait to make any judgement until we hear from them. In my opinion, I have a pretty good feeling that it will end up being localized, and that they will have a much better advertising campaign this time around.
Yakuza 1's problem was being marketed as a Japanese GTA clone (when it clearly wasn't), and also at that point people were already getting ready for the next generation of consoles. Meanwhile Yakuza 2 had very little marketing overall, took an abundant amount of time to be localized, and was releasing on an older generation system. I think they realized these mistakes, and I don't really see them making the same errors again. Perhaps we'll hear about a release after this holiday season (due to it being pretty cramped with most companies wanting to focus their money on advertising their heavy hitters), with a scheduled release of maybe next summer or winter. That's my best guess though.
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hush404 |
hush404- 3:37pm BST - July 30th, 2009
- 11
That's dumb and their own fault!!! While everyone was going around showing awesome PS3 games these tars were going "YEAH!!! PEOPLE STILL GIVE A FLYING F**K ABOUT THE PS2!!" and wondered why their PS2 game didn't sell like crazy?
That's the most flawwed logic I've ever head of!
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SolidDrake86
- 7:28pm BST - July 30th, 2009
- 16
For anyone who cares, I just picked this up on play asia .com. Awesome site , I got this for like 82.00 with shipping. A lot of games are less, like I also picked up Hakuna Matata ( Afrika) for around $25
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iceveiled
- 7:37pm BST - July 30th, 2009
- 18
It's kind of a catch 22. A lot of games don't sell themselves, others ride the wings of disgusting hype (halo franchise). The publisers won't release it here because the first two games didn't sell well. That's understandable. A few thousand cult followers doesn't justify localization costs, but MARKETING AND ADVERTISING the game could create a potential top seller, and one heck of a PS3 exclusive. Too bad.
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talibankiller |
talibankiller27- 8:22pm BST - July 30th, 2009
- 19
damn i was really looking forward on getting this game
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SickKicks
- 9:26pm BST - July 30th, 2009
- 21
Do you think that may have something to do with the fact that Yakuza 2 was released in 2008 as a PS2 exclusive? So you released your game as an exclusive on a platform that was eight years old at the time, has the largest game library in history, that was in a market dominated by next-generation systems and 40,000 units surprises you?
Well, I guess that's just Sega. They release complete crap most of the time, and when they do release something good (like Valkyria Chronicles) no one seems to notice it's a Sega game, or they kneecap themselves because they're too afraid of low sales to hire a damn translator.
Oh well, that's the great thing about the PS3. The language barrier isn't going to stop me from ordering the game. :p
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Funeralfog |
blksabbath- 1:28am BST - July 31st, 2009
- 23
some things might sell if you actually try marketing
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alistvonphole
- 6:36pm BST - August 3rd, 2009
- 27
psychological motive and acting make "gangs' an intelectually interesting topic
it would have to be a superior script- and a rpg shooter, like fallout 3 to get the potential out of this genra. to make a AAA title.
personally I wish game ratings did a better job of calling out crap titles like this.
since crap games are the industry standard and ps3 is awash in them it is breakdown between advertizing and reviewing that is the culprit
Forsomeone like myself that holds the line and refuses to play anything but the best - our game collections are very small and crap titles like this are obviously unconsiderable.
I think Destructoid are the only major reviewers that I trust at this point.
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