Yakuza 3 for PS3 is Coming to Europe and North America in 2010

[PS3 News]

Today SEGA's Online Community Manager Kevin Eva has confirmed rumors that Yakuza 3 for PS3 is coming to Europe and North America in 2010, with http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=76648 already taking pre-orders.

To quote: Hi guys I'm Kevin, Online Community Manager at http://www.sega.co.uk and known to those in the SEGA fraternity as ArchangelUK (or AAUK for short) pleased to meet you.

One of my responsibilities as it were is dealing with our classic franchises, so I'm especially delighted to be able to at last confirm something that we've been working on for what seems like forever.

YAKUZA 3 IS COMING TO THE WEST!

Yes indeed, Europe and America will be getting the chance to take on the mantle of Kiryu Kazuma this time battling the Ryudo Ikka, and once again Yakuza will be an exclusive for the PlayStation 3.

Yakuza (or Ryu ga Gotoku as its known in the East) has a highly dedicated fanbase and the series has a very hardcore following over on this side of the globe. Yakuza 3 has already sold over half a million copies in Japan alone and whilst the wait has been long for our US, European and Australian fans you won't have to wait much longer - the game will be out March 2010.

So yes your pleas for Yakuza 3 were heard loud and clear, I'll allow Gary Knight - SOE's European Marketing Director, to explain more:

"Yakuza 3 was one of the most requested titles for localisation by our European SEGA community, so we are delighted to be able to fulfil their wishes with this announcement.

As well as delving even further into the rich narrative of the Yakuza universe, the development team have pushed the PlayStation 3 hardware to the limits to produce a beautiful and startlingly realistic depiction of the Japanese underworld."

As part of the lengthy localisation work Yakuza 3 will feature full English subtitling, 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!

Also using our incredible powers of persuasion and dark (blue) magic, we've been able to get you guys on the PSB.EU an exclusive interview with the developers of the game. So, if there's anything you'd like to ask the team about the games production post it in the comments section below. We will then pick the best ones and send them over to Japan.

Yakuza 3 is coming - will you fight like a pussy-cat or more Like a Dragon?



More PlayStation 3 News...

[aleXtrm]

They are not even translating the audio, yet it is taking them this long?! Have I misunderstood this and they will be providing both Japanese and Translated Audio for the gamer to choose?

I am not really against playing the game with english subtitles, as I often watch Japanese anime with english subtitles, however I am sure others would find this annoying.

[mukumuku]

In my opinion people at Sega took a dumb decision. FFXIII, GOW3, GT5 (probably), all come out at march. Plus people will have bought Star Ocean 4 and maybe WKC at February. We will have more than enough games to beat and most of them will be bothering us for quite a long time. So the sales will be mediocre again, like yakuza 2 which sold pretty weak.

Sega need to change the marketing team If they had decided to release the game during the end of summer, when there were a few games worth playing the game would have solid sales and would have made a lot of fans in the US and EU. I hope I will be proved wrong and the game will sell good because I want to see the future sequels of the series released outside of Japan, and of course play them myself

As for the audio, japanese voice acting suits the game better. English audio will be like watching a dubbed Jackie Chan movie (i know it's chinese but this was the first thought that came in my mind when I imagined Kazuma speaking English )

[Siggy12]

Didn't cost nothing anyway put the english subtitle on the japanese version of the game... anyway Thank you Sega for listen the people who really want to play this game in a comprehensible way.