Yakuza 3

[kupomogli]

This is the shit.


Popping into the comments section of a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sega of America assistant community manager Aaron Webber has said "Yakuza 3 is not cancelled – and the possibility for localizing it does, in fact, still exist."

"The original news story that went around about Yakuza 3 being declined for the US was false, and localizing the game still remains a big point of discussion for many people here at SEGA, and especially those of us on SEGA's community team."

"I know it's far from an announcement, but I just felt you should know that the chance does still exist."

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2009/09/500x_yaktrans.jpg

http://kotaku.com/5362160/sega-still-teasing-a-yakuza-3-release-for-the-west

[chicnstu]

I absolutely loved the Japanese PSN demo. The combat was fun and the scenes were very cool. I hope it makes it here.

[CDiablo]

Keeping my fingers crossed.

[exit]

I don't care if they don't release that side story game, or even YaKuza 4, I just want to see the end of Kazuma's story god damnit.

[Bojay1997]

I really would love for this to come out, but I think these comments by someone who doesn't even have the power to decide whether or not it will be released are being blown way out of proportion. The person quoted is basically a customer service/online moderator. All she said was that there are some people at Sega of America who would love for it to come out. I'm sure there are people there who would love lots of things to come out that never will including Shenmue III.

[ScourDX]

Time to track down Yakuza 2. It is still $25 used at EB. :frustrated:

[kupomogli]

Time to track down Yakuza 2. It is still $25 used at EB. :frustrated:

19.99 on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Yakuza-2-Playstation/dp/B0017R5SYI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1253335542&sr=8-1

[kupomogli]

Update.

I attempted to load the 1up page it had linked. At my work it wouldn't load though, so unfortunately can't look at what 1up said.

Well. Looks like we're actually going to get Yakuza 3. Another amazing game to add to the PS3 library. Hopefully it sells well enough to see Yakuza 4. Also depending on the release date of Yakuza 3, but looks like I'm going to replay Yakuza 1 and 2.


Here's some great news for all PS3 owners, it looks like Yakuza 3 is indeed headed for a western release. According to a reliable source from 1UP, the PS3 exclusive title is currently being localized for North American and European release.

If you may recall just a few days ago, Sega's assistant community manager Aaron Webber commented that the company is still planning to release Yakuza 3 in the US despite earlier rumors that the game is canceled. Now with the Tokyo Game Show happening later this week,
hopefully Sega will make a formal announcement about the games western release date.

Moving on to another Yakuza news, 1UP also believes that a Yakuza 4 announcement is imminent during the said event.

http://ps3.qj.net/Yakuza-3-headed-to-the-West-Yakuza-4-announcement-incoming/pg/49/aid/134663

[exit]

Thank God that Sega finally got their head out of their asses, looks like I won't be boycotting them after all. Now everyone just needs to actually buy the game this time, then we will possibly see Yakuza 4 and maybe even Kenzan.

[Damaramu]

Oh shit. This is good news indeed. I've been waiting for THE game to pick up a PS3 Slim for and I've found it. Yay!

[Kitsune Sniper]

Oh shit. This is good news indeed. I've been waiting for THE game to pick up a PS3 Slim for and I've found it. Yay!

Wouldn't it be funny if Yakuza 3 ended up being exactly what the system needed to finally gain more ground in market share?

[kupomogli]

I think Sega should attempt to get Atlus to pick up the title for localization(or Sega localize it and make a deal with Atlus to release it.) Sure Sega won't make as much money than if they released it themselves, but think about it. If Sega got Atlus to do it, Atlus would promote the hell out of it, and the major thing, it has "Atlus" pressed onto the game.

After Yakuza 3 gets a fairly high fanbase, Sega may see a jump in sales from Yakuza and Yakuza 2. Both games sell on Amazon as well as other gaming sites such as Gamequestdirect, etc. But not only that. Sega, instead of employing Atlus to do the localization of Yakuza 4, does it themselves. Atlus already would have given them the publicity that they needed with the release of Yakuza 3, or atleast a decent amount of it, and boom, Sega has themselves a sortof well known franchise.

I'd say use Atlus to further their needs. The majority of games that Atlus has been releasing is crap, so it'd also be good that Atlus releases a good game for once that doesn't consist of Shin Megami Tensei or Persona(and obviously Demon's Souls.) Atlus fanboys will actually receive a good game.

[j_factor]

This is awesome news. I hope they get around to translating Kenzan as well. Maybe, since the series isn't so popular here, they could just give it a completely different title and pretend it's an unrelated game.

[Cryomancer]

Wouldn't it be funny if Yakuza 3 ended up being exactly what the system needed to finally gain more ground in market share?

Well this is also the first Ps3 exclusive I've been interested in, so at least for some people that'll do it. I don't think I'm gonna buy one any time soon due to my no income and all, but I was working I'd certainly consider it after this. Maybe. But that's better than the zero interest I had before.

[exit]

It's official (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/105/1053062p1.html), Yakuza 3 is coming March 2010 and I have just gained some faith back in Sega.

[Aussie2B]

It's official (http://ps3.ign.com/articles/105/1053062p1.html), Yakuza 3 is coming March 2010 and I have just gained some faith back in Sega.

You've made my day, man. :) Thanks for the update.

AND confirmed to have Japanese voices intact. If they want to throw a dub in there too, more power to 'em, but having a version of Yakuza 3 with English text and Japanese voices is about the best Christmas present Sega could give me this year.

[heybtbm]

I had Yakuza 2 in my cart at Amazon for months (at least 6). I finally bit when it hit $19.99 a month ago. Just checked and it's now doubled in price. Now that's an investment. Thanks Sega!

Seriously though...can't wait to play it.

[Zoltor]

Wow thanks, I need to let my ATLUS people know about this, because not even they are aware of this(infact they heard the opposite), thanks for the info update.

[kupomogli]

Now just hoping it's on a disc. I'll pick this up early on if it is. I hope this game has a discounted Amazon release price.

[j_factor]

Now just hoping it's on a disc. I'll pick this up early on if it is. I hope this game has a discounted Amazon release price.

If they do download only here, and I think they probably won't (and I certainly hope they don't), they'll certainly have a disc release in Europe at least.

[kupomogli]

One thing I did read today while going through Siliconera was that the hostess management part is going to be removed to save time and money on localization. Something like this isn't going to save them much time nor money and is kind of fucked up if you ask me. Show's how lazy the localization team is.

http://www.n4g.com/News-401240.aspx

[Aussie2B]

I had Yakuza 2 in my cart at Amazon for months (at least 6). I finally bit when it hit $19.99 a month ago. Just checked and it's now doubled in price. Now that's an investment. Thanks Sega!

Good, I hope people are finally realizing how amazing the game is. Sega sure as heck didn't draw attention to it, so hopefully word of mouth will spread.

[exit]

I had Yakuza 2 in my cart at Amazon for months (at least 6). I finally bit when it hit $19.99 a month ago. Just checked and it's now doubled in price. Now that's an investment. Thanks Sega!

Seriously though...can't wait to play it.

I picked the game up the day it was released just to help support the game, even tho I wasn't even close to finishing the first one at the time. I finally beat the first one a year after Yakuza 2 was released here, so now I have an excuse to hurry and finish the game now.

Not sure how well Yakuza 3 is going to sell due to the oddly chosen release date, but they'll get at least one sale from that day, hopefully everyone else who begged for the game to be released here will do the same.

[Aussie2B]

Well, I know I signed a couple petitions for a US Yakuza 3 (even though I know they don't amount to anything), and I said in then it would be a day one purchase for me, which is an extremely rare thing for me. I know I'll be keeping that promise.

[kupomogli]

Preorder Yakuza 3 at Gamestop and get it for 54.99(Amazon is priced the same) and a bonus challenge pack.


Reserve Yakuza 3 and get the GameStop Exclusive Challenge Pack. Challenge your friends in 2-player mini-games including pool, darts, bowling, or take in a round of golf! This special pre-sell offer also includes a selection of four different outfits for Haruka, Kazuma and Rikiya to wear.

Aren't those mini games already available in the game? Are they only single player in the game or are they two player?

[Aussie2B]

Bleh, the US cover is kinda ugly. And how they managed to make Kiryu ugly is beyond me. Although it was practically a given that they wouldn't use the Japanese cover. Even with the Mature rating, they still probably wouldn't want a cover that glamorizes cigarettes. But still, you can't beat how stylish and awesome this cover looks:

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/bigboxshots/6/950186_107209_front.jpg

I've had the wallpaper version of it on my desktop for months.

Downloadable content is always cool, although it doesn't sound like anything to get especially excited over (except for the people that endlessly whine about Kiryu always being in the same outfit). I'd rather have some sort of physical promo item, like a nice looking poster or something.

[Julio III]

I believe all that DLC came out in multiple packs in Japan.

I hope that rumour about the removal of club management is not true because I'm playing through the 2nd game at the moment and really liking the new club management/be a host sidequests.

[Spot778]

The DLC was released in 4 packs and it was all free.

The mini games are indeed playable with two players but offline only.

I suspect there be further cuts to content, there are a few side missions that are questionable.

Far better game then 1+2, Kenzan was very good too.

[BHvrd]

Now if only we could get one of these! :(

http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/127762/ps3ryu_qjgenth.jpg?205318

[kupomogli]

Bleh, the US cover is kinda ugly. And how they managed to make Kiryu ugly is beyond me. Although it was practically a given that they wouldn't use the Japanese cover. Even with the Mature rating, they still probably wouldn't want a cover that glamorizes cigarettes. But still, you can't beat how stylish and awesome this cover looks:

Sometimes we get reversable covers. Hopefully the game has a reversable cover with the original cover on the back.

[Spot778]

I'm sure play-asia have a few.

I was in Tokyo staying in Shinkjuku right after the game released.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y10/spot778/DSC00517.jpg

[kupomogli]

I'd live in that.

[Aussie2B]

I'd live in that.

Haha, I think you summed up my feelings on that better than I could myself.

[Spot778]

I suspect the rent would make you think twice ROFL

I also went to Yokuska (home of Shenmue) about an hour or so by train from Shinjuku.

Had AWESOME ramen there. About the only thing you'll recognize are the shipping warehouses. Still awesome to spend about 6 hours there.

[Julio III]

I also went to Yokuska (home of Shenmue) about an hour or so by train from Shinjuku.


I'm jealous. I always wanted to do this about 10 years ago.

[Spot778]

I got laid off when HP bought EDS

Got an AWESOME severance package (8 months pay) so off I went.

A LOT cheaper then I expected for airfare and hotel. You can pay a lot if you want but I think I clocked in under 5K in CDN dollars.

Yokosuka (I spelled it wrong as Yukuska, however that's the way it's pronounced) was roughly $10 each way from Shinjuku but it was a dream come true.

I can't see why people think Yakuza 3 would be a PSN download it's HUGE !

Also Atlus couldn't have afforded it, there's a ton of licensing in the game, Suntory, Black, Don Quixote etc ...

[kupomogli]

I think Atlus could have afforded it, but yeah. Yakuza 2 has everything from multiple different types of beer and liquor. They even sell Pepsi and Gatorade in the game.




I hope that rumour about the removal of club management is not true because I'm playing through the 2nd game at the moment and really liking the new club management/be a host sidequests.

I'm going to be fucking pissed if this is the case. I've heard this also.

[exit]

Well the game is finally out and I was finally able to pick it up today, due to a shipping area where almost no Gamestops got the game on time. I've only been playing it for an hour and by playing it I mean watching cut scenes, the beginning of the game is very story oriented and ties the time gap between 2 and 3 pretty well.

It's also been discovered that there's more cut than what was originally said, not sure if these cuts are related to the hostess bars or anything, but there's a list on the Gamefaqs board cluttered under all the fanboy rants on how much Sega is teh sux. I however don't really care about the cuts, if it's anything important (which I doubt) I'll read about it, I'm just glad that the game actually came here.

As for us getting for Yakuza 4, I won't be holding my breath until the sales are posted.

[Aussie2B]

At this point, I refuse to believe anything about the cuts. Anytime somebody makes a list of the cut content, somebody else comes along and questions it. I'm still waiting for someone who has played through all of the Japanese game to play through the US version and confirm the differences once and for all.

[exit]

Well I've already sunk quite some time on this just doing the sub-stories alone, so I've barely scratched the surface of the main story as a result. They really improved the fighting, so that stiff feeling is pretty much gone and everything feels a lot more fluid as a result. The game looks great considering it's a year old, which makes me wonder why I've seen people criticize it's graphics, since I think they're on par with Uncharted 2.

So...anyone else get this but me?



At this point, I refuse to believe anything about the cuts. Anytime somebody makes a list of the cut content, somebody else comes along and questions it. I'm still waiting for someone who has played through all of the Japanese game to play through the US version and confirm the differences once and for all.

It's been confirmed by someone who played through both versions of the game and used a guide as a reference, that 21 sub-stories were cut, less if you don't count the ones that were continuation of other quests. Some of them were related to already cut stuff (hostess bars, Answer X Answer) and others were cut for unknown reasons. Still doesn't take anything away from the game tho.

[kupomogli]

So...anyone else get this but me?

I got it but a few days prior to getting it gave my dad my LCD and got a Plasma tv 2010 model. Unfortunately it was just yesterday that it finally got to the place Amazon shipped it to and I didn't get home from work until after it closed, meaning I have to wait until Monday to call them then a few more days to get it delivered to my house.

I want to break the tv in first, but I want to play Yakuza. Hopefully the mini map can be turned off.

[exit]

Hopefully the mini map can be turned off.

It can by hitting L3 a few times, which is something I figured out the hard way.

[Aussie2B]

I bought it, but Amazon shipped it only a day or two ago.

The more I learn about the cuts, the more I'm really disgusted about how deceitful Sega has been and what a thoroughly half-assed, rush-job of a localization they did. I mean, they cut out over 15% of the quests for crying out loud, and they turned the red light district into a barren wasteland. And while they made it seem like most of the stuff they were cutting Americans wouldn't "get", most of it was actually present in the previous releases. There was zero reason for any of the cuts besides the quiz. In the end Sega just wanted to cut costs, but of course they're not passing those price cuts along to the consumer at all.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

http://mega64.com/2010/03/09/a-yakuza-3-short-film/

Tanner!! *giggles*

[kupomogli]

Yakuza 3 sold 50,000 the first week. Low numbers, but it's near the amount Yakuza 2 sold its entire lifetime.

Because Yakuza 3 is almost already outselling Yakuza 2. Anyone thinking Sega might localize Yakuza 4? Subtitled only, I don't care, just this time don't cut anything Sega.

[exit]

Sega's Mike Hayes made a statement about Yakuza 3, saying they regret not having released the game earlier, meaning that it's probably doing a lot better than they expected, which is the closest we'll ever get them saying that they were wrong.


Yakuza's huge news on CVG. There's obviously a massive appetite for it out there...
For our fanbase - and it's really big in the United States in particular - we at Sega are disappointed that we didn't introduce Yakuza 3 earlier to market. That was probably an error on our part.

There was a lot of disappointment from Sega fans that we didn't have that on our release schedule last year. What I would say in our defence is that it has approximately 2.5 million Japanese [language] characters to translate in it. It's a huge translation job. That's about a million English characters.

What does this mean? Well for one they'll put up less of a fight on releasing Yakuza 4 here and will probably release it uncut. This also could mean that maybe, just maybe they'll release the cut content as DLC, thus generating sales from all the people that were holding out, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

Here's a link (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=239411) to the full article.

[Aussie2B]

Well, I'm glad they're admitting to something. But of course they're doing the typical PR spin to make it seem like they had reasonable excuses for everything they did, which they certainly did not.

But yeah, if we get Yakuza 4, uncut no less, then that would be terrific. Only problem for me is that there are multiple playable characters in that game, and considering how much I adore Kiryu, I'd rather Y4 be cut than a game than Y3 which stars him fully. But those are just my own silly little concerns.

And if this actually prompts them to offer the cut content as DLC, as much of a sucker as it would make me, I honestly would pay money for that. But if they don't want to make themselves look like complete douches, they'd better make it free.

Who knows, if the sales are better than expected, maybe they'll even decide to bring out Kenzan.

[kupomogli]

I don't really care much for Kenzan. I want to see Yakuza 4 over here. A statement like that seems like we very well may get a release.

[Kitsune Sniper]

The 2.5 million Japanese to 1 million English characters line really sounds... wrong to me for some reason.

[Aussie2B]

It is wrong. Localizations from Japanese to English always INCREASE the number of characters, not decrease. I mean, first you got kanji, which can represent what would be an entire word in English in just one character, and then you got hiragana and katakana which generally represent both a consonant and a vowel in a single character. The average sentence in Japanese is represented in fewer characters than it would be in English.

Although obviously Japanese has far more characters to begin with, so they need to store more than our 26 letters (or 52 with capitals and lowercase). But in the end English takes up more storage space. There have been some cases in the past where part of the reason why a game didn't get a US release is because they would've had to increase the cart size and make it prohibitively expensive.

[kupomogli]

Maybe he said it backwards? Probably meant one million Japanese characters which would have been 2.5 million English characters.

[Kitsune Sniper]

It is wrong. Localizations from Japanese to English always INCREASE the number of characters, not decrease. I mean, first you got kanji, which can represent what would be an entire word in English in just one character, and then you got hiragana and katakana which generally represent both a consonant and a vowel in a single character. The average sentence in Japanese is represented in fewer characters than it would be in English.

Although obviously Japanese has far more characters to begin with, so they need to store more than our 26 letters (or 52 with capitals and lowercase). But in the end English takes up more storage space. There have been some cases in the past where part of the reason why a game didn't get a US release is because they would've had to increase the cart size and make it prohibitively expensive.

I'm more than aware about that. I've been editing Japanese to English game translations for years, and I -am- an English / Spanish translator. :p

I'm just saying the guy has no idea what he's talking about.

[kupomogli]

Week 2 and we're at 70,000 in the US. Atleast 30,000 more to go in the next month or two is what I'm hoping. The sales already seem good enough that we'll probably receive Yakuza 4 though.

[exit]

Well I think that with the great critical response and decent sales the game received during such a crowded month should bold well for the game. Sega will probably release Yakuza 4 here with little to no fighting involved, especially since it's become a system seller over in Japan, there's really no reason for them to not release it here since Yakuza 3 proves that there's a growing fanbase here now.