Yakuza 3 heads west in March 2010

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Dec 8th 2009 12:00PM

As fans of Sega's Yakuza series (known as Ryu ga Gotoku in Japan) will quickly point out, the lengthy wait for localized versions is somewhat of a disorganized crime. With two PlayStation 3-exclusive installments already available in Japan (and a third on the way), Sega Europe's online community manager, Kevin Eva, offers an enthusiastic answer to the impatient question: "YAKUZA 3 IS COMING TO THE WEST." So enthusiastic, it seems, he's already busting some CAPS.

Writing on the European PlayStation Blog, Eva confirmed that Yakuza 3 will hit the US, Europe and Australia in March 2010, and emphasized the game's adherence to its cultural origins -- not to mention Sega's budget. "As part of the lengthy localisation work Yakuza 3 will feature full English subtitling," he wrote, "whilst maintaining the rich Japanese voice actors that bring an extremely engaging atmosphere to the game – this will no doubt please the purists out there!"

Plus, you wouldn't want to upset those rich Japanese voice actors by replacing them. Who knows how well they're connected?

Yakuza 3 (PS3)

Source

Tags: action, CS1-Team, Ryu-ga-Gotoku, ryu-ga-gotoku-3, sega, yakuza, yakuza-3

Reader Comments (112)

Alright you asked for it, now support it...

I have a feeling you're going to find out just how loud that small minority was, the ones begging for this to come over.

The NPD [National Penis Department] numbers will be very interesting after its release, lets hope that people actually buy it because if they dont it will deffinetly have a knock on effect for the next Yakuza and most, if not all, Japanese only games.

Hats off to Sega for taking the risk, I just hope the people who signed petitions ETC have a lot more staying power than the L4D2 & MW2 boycotting groups..combined.

ppl will buy it as long as sega pulls there head out of their collective asses and makes an add or 2 this time

I'll support it FOR SURE but why in the same time frame as Final Fantasy. WHY?!!! :(

Time to start stocking up on Red Bull...

Domo Arigato Ryu ga Gotoku

That's the truth, I want to see how much the west would really support this. It doesn't look that great, butbive never played a yakuza game.

I will be getting it for sure... I loved the jap demo.

I have herd good things about it, so I'll do my duty as well.

Another March release. How I'm gonna afford all this game on the same month I still have no clue. God of War III, Yakuza 3, GT5, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and maybe Heavy Rain (spring release?).
I'm not into Final Fantasy or any RPG for that matter.

Now, they should do an Yakuza collection just like God of War, Y1 & 2 for PS3 with trophy support, right? ...Yeah, keep dreaming.

Wait...don't we need the second game first? I thought we only had the first!

http://www.amazon.com/Yakuza-2-Playstation/dp/B0017R5SYI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1260292106&sr=8-3

Much improved over the first.

Odd...I've only ever seen the first in stores.

Okay, I'll post this again. Anyone else not able to get on the PlayStation Store? It's giving me a 'not available in your region' error.

i cant get in either :(

Cheaper AND more true to the work. I like it!

It's gonna get eaten up by the other march games

definitely. ff13, gow 3, bfbc2, all established titles here and releasing in march. yakuza 3 wont even make a dent in sales.

lol. i like this. very much indeed.

PREORDER BONUSES TO THE RESCUE BITCHES

I don't even see what the big deal about this game is. My dislike for japanese games aside, I've watched lots of gameplay vids of the japanese version and the combat makes it look like a very generic and uninteresting brawler. It has decent graphics, but that seems to be it.

I'll still probably gamefly it as filler before god of war 3, but I don't really see a good game here.

try the demo it's actually quite the fun brawler

Dude this game is awesome and I've been wanting it forever. I loved the demo and the previous iterations. Also, unless something has changed from the initial announcement a few months back this will be a PSN download in the new to be coming imports section. So, you can't gamefly it unless they are doing a BD release afterall. This is like a brawled version of GTA set in Japan with awesome mini games.

Download the demo ... It's epic.

I'd of imported it but it's so story driven that I didn't want to miss anything. There is a good translation guide on game faqs though. Day 1 for me and another fantastic PS3 exclusive in early 2010.

This was my most anticipated game this year and Im so happy it's being brought over stateside. This is a niche game in the states so i'm sure sales expectations are modest. I'd guess it'll push 40,000 units in it's launch window depending on distribution and maybe 100K lifetime in North America.

They released Yakuza 2 like 2 years (or more maybe) after the JPN release with no marketing or fanfare. It wasn't that long ago either ... Maybe last year.

If it's psn only then I have no problem not playing it at all. This game just isn't good enough from everything I've seen to warrant a purchase of any kind. It's too last gen-ish in the gameplay department.

Yes much like record of agaraest war this will be a PSN game in the imports section. That really makes the most sense sales wise as well because there won't distribution and manufacturing costs.

I'd say go download the demo and try it out ... What am I saying because you made your mind up already. In that case pretend it doesn't exist. :shrugs: Im just happy there is a release date. Can't wait for it. It's like the spiritual successor to Shenmue and I love the series. It's not for everyone but it's damn good to me.

After watching the generic combat on youtube, I don't need to play exactly what I saw to re-confirm to me that it's generic and last gen. Nothing's going to magically change with the transition from video to playing.

So then we agree. You've already made your mind up so just pretend it doesn't exist. It's what you were going to do regardless. Come in and stir up some shit, banter about Japanese devs and games and pretend that you had a passing interest in the first place. Call me old fashioned but I typically like to give things the old college try before I run them into the ground. It was stupid of me to even suggest you could try the game because as I said you weren't interested with the game ... Just being a stan darsh and trying to make everyone feel as miserable as you do.

You said the combat looked last genish and I said you could play it for yourself and find out. I forgot who I was dealing with. Go back to pretending it doesn't exist and everyone wins.

I already have forgotten it exists, as will everyone else when it comes out and sells under 10,000.

It has a great story, that's what. Most games that get good reviews still have terrible writing.

Actually I just checked and there is an option to add it to your GameQ.

YES
FINALLY

Smart move. The game seems to have high enough production values that it made little sense not to localize, to try and recoup those costs. Plus the West goes ape for anything gangster (and that's in the old term, not gangsta)

We go apeshit for everything gangster as long as its american type gangster stuff. There's a reason why the getaway and yakuza 2 flopped here, we don't care about british or japanese shenaningannery.

Add the fact that it's coming out around the same time as FF13 and god of war 3...this will flop extremely hard. Maybe even excitebots hard (~10,000 first month sales)

Tmac, what are you talking about?! They brought over new controls WITHOUT sacrificing stealth? Are you kidding me?! MGS4 is the least stealthly MG. Don't give me that "You can choose" crap, because I did choose to sneak... but guess what? The game is westernized so much that it gives you 10 million rations before you get the first part. I understand that you can choose stealth, but sneaking is waayyy too easy if they give you 70 weapons in a game, ammo you can buy in 3 seconds, and 10 million rations.

MGS4 definitly sacrificed stealth to be more westernized, and a lot of fans would agree that they would rather have a regular MGS japanese game.

Now I do love MGS4, its an amazing game. But I still wish they would have made it... a metal gear game.

You dislike bomberman, mario, and zelda?

i dislike this comment system more than tmac dislikes japanese games...

I don't really include nintendo there because they've always done things differently than the other japanese devs. But pretty much everyone else, yeah I don't like the way they make their games anymore.

Because apparently Activision and Bungie are great.. lol

Bungie and later Activision (infinity ward, really) revolutionized the FPS genre. I can't remember the last time a japanese developer revolutionized anything game related outside of nintendo.

Also Bioware, Bethesda, Valve, EA's devs, Rocksteady (Batman for the uninformed), Naughty Dog, Blizzard, Gearbox, Ubisoft's devs (like the AC and SC teams), Insomniac, Epic, Harmonix...are all better than every current japanese dev. They're all the reasons why the west is on top now.

What of Kojima Productions? You seemed to like that.

I generally prefer East to West, but not to the point that it clouds my judgment. I don't like cinematic games, and i loathe open-world RPGs (like anything Bethesda does, for instance), but that generally falls to a distaste for certain developers, and a like for certain others (fitting, since my favorite game of all time was western-devved). I just don't like:
Games with strongly cinematic stories
Games that are focused on competitive online multiplayer
DLC, at all
Games that are too open-ended (Bethesda, again)

These are values that western devs tend to espouse, but not universally. Same reason i can't stand modern final fantasy games, and those are as japanese as you can get.

Kojima succeeded with MGS 4 because he was one of the only smart ones to understand that gaming changed this generation, and he brought in a westerner (Ryan Payton) to help make the controls and gameplay up to current gen standards, without sacrificing the stealth portions.

Kojima's also taking notes from other western devs for whatever future project he has up his sleeve. He's one of the few who gets it, and I respect him for that.

"Did you heard about DMC?
Okami?
Shadow of the Colussus?
ICO?
Vieutiful Joe?
Resident Evil 4?
Demon Souls?
Persona Series?"

Just about all of those are last gen games. Demons souls didn't do anything new either. You think they're the first game to ever be hard?

What did persona do besides being really japanese and proving my point on how stale they are?

SEGA...FUCK, YEAH.

I love when idiot Japanese game devs hold back their games for over a year so that it can be released in the most overbooked time of year.

Way to go White Knight Chronicles and Yakuza. You've just fucked yourselves over. You can go ahead and start your whining about the western market now. You don't need to wait for your games to officially fail at retail.

USUALLY March isn't the most overbooked time of the year for games.....usually thats between August-December.....but since an assload of the games got pushed back the beginning of 2010, White Knight Chronicles has a big gap for a reason, its gotten added features and that takes time. Yakuza 3 on the other hand, I'm not sure if it got anything added or not, but thats Segas choosing

I was going to import it, I wonder whats coming of that "Import" store on PSN...

at any rate I think that this game will most likely do under half a million in its first year over here, unless Sony markets it as the second coming...

Which they wont. They've got to worry about FF13 and god of war 3 selling, their big hitters. They don't give a shit about this game anywhere outside of japan.

I think you're right...but Sega could market it...

Sega? Market?

Ha!

They left Valkyria Chronicles out to die...why would this be any different?

they were dumbasses for that too....

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Yakuza 3 heads west in March 2010

Yakuza 3 (PS3)

Reader Comments (112)

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