According to the Sega Europe official blog, Yakuza 4 is being localized and will be released in Spring 2011. No official announcement has been made for a North American release, but the game will be at E3 next week. It’s likely to be announced for North America at the event.
Keep in mind that even if the game is not officially released over here, the Playstation 3 is region free and will play European discs. So either way, we be playing Yakuza 4 soon enough!
The news is certainly surprising considering it took Sega of America almost a year after the Japanese release of Yakuza 3 to even announce it was being localized. Then they released the game the same day as Final Fantasy 13, so I assumed they were simply sending the series to die here. Well I guess Yakuza 3 sold well enough to announce the Yakuza 4 localization just a couple of months after the Japanese release.
The only other concern now is the potential for cut content in Yakuza 4. As I predicted before, I seriously doubt Sega would remove anything this time considering the backlash to the cuts from the previous game. If anything, they will use “We are not cutting anything this time!!” as a marketing strategy. Either way, this is great news.
Brad
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I hope they don’t edit anything out his time.
I hear Yaguchi Mari is in this one.
Yeah, the possibility of cut content has me a little concerned.
Other than that, this is great.
Here’s hoping that’ll it be left intact, though.
Holy fucking shit, this is awesome! =D
I hope you americans get’s this as well, and I hope they don’t cut content this time, we aren’t more sensetive than the folks in Japan, have they seen the games we have here? I think we can handle it in other words.
I would also love to see Yakuza: Kenzan get an european/north american release :/
lol kenzan was 2008, i think its reasonable to say that were not getting it, wens Spring 2011, spring for EU or US? coz spring US is Q3? meaning OVER a year
I played only Yakuza 3 but I realy liked it. It’s great that game is being translated after all.
Now we can “pfft” and laugh at old highlights like this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7GRY0X4oxI
Fantastic news! I’ll be looking forward to it for sure. I love the Yakuza series.
HoHohoho~!! Gotta admit thats pretty darn sweet, I gave up all glimmer of hope after the travesty that was the localized Yakuza 3 release, but(obviously) this is great news! Hope you guys get it released stateside, seeing as shipping can be a real b*tch-bag. Not worrying too much about cut content for the reasons you aforementioned.
Wonder if they are planning for a planning for a release date close to MvC3, Gears of War 3 and Assassin’s Creed; Brotherhood, cause that’ll sure bring a lot of sales to a niche series.
Beast…
It is being released for the US as well.
http://forums.sega.com/showpost.php?p=5871995&postcount=5
I can’t wait!
Cool stuff. I look forward to seeing more Yakuza on the feed.
I’m glad. Cut-content/US release or not. Even though my Japanese was probably fair enough to get through Yakuza 3 (I understood the original dialogue most of the time) , I can barely keep up even in English when they start talking matters pertaining to crime families.
So yeah, gimme some English! WOO!
I believe M. Bison said it best:
“Yes! YES!”
Glee Unrelenting. One less regret when I die!
As with Uther and many of you, I am filled with utter glee from this news. I loved Yakuza 3 (and I didn’t care much for the content cut as I just wanted to play the game). I will be awaiting Yakuza 4 patiently.
I am giddy like a school girl. You have plenty of time for translations so no more excuses for cutting contents this time Sega.
I was just wondering. I have never played any of the Yakuza games before but I have been interested in playing them for a while now? Should I start with the first one or is jumping into something like the 4th game (which is probably alot cheeper and easyer to find than the original)?
Moom, you could start with the 3rd game. In the Start Menu there’s an option that allows you to watch a really great recap of what happened in the first and second game so new players won’t feel left out in the story, though it doesn’t really allow you to feel the true justice of Yakuza unless you play all of them
I’m happy Yakuza 4 already confirmed for Europe/NA. I can see this game outselling Yakuza 3 by a lot.
Really looking forward to it; I love the Yakuza series and I’d hate for it to end for us with only the 3rd installment.. can’t wait!!!
That makes me excited! I really can’t wait to play this game. YAKUZA. The Yakuza series is one of my favourites out of all the games that I have played.