Yakuza 7 (Yakuza: Like a Dragon in America) is changing a lot of things that were considered bread and butter for the franchise. This includes a new lead character and a change from real time action to turn base combat. Unsurprisingly this has lead to a drop in launch sales. Does this mean that this whole new direction has been a failure? Not really, it will depend on how the game sales overtime and we still have to launch it outside of Japan. Who knows, in the West, this being a soft reboot might help it.
Check out the tweet by Game Data Library on Twitter for a sales chart:
Launch sales of Yakuza 7 in Japan are the weakest of a main Yakuza title since the original game being a 20% drop from the launch of Yakuza 6.
Genre change is affecting the game as expected, but reception is good, legs is what will ultimately matters. pic.twitter.com/6HRgO8KI78
— Game Data Library (@GameDataLibrary) January 22, 2020
What are your thoughts on the Japanese launch sales of Yakuza 7 (Yakuza: Like a Dragon)? Do you think SEGA will go back to real time combat for the next title?
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Hey, you got Yakuza in my Border Break!
It still was the best selling game of the week in Japan, so I wouldn’t say it’s THAT bad.
And yet it was better than Kiwami 2 and Judgment, if only by a small margin. The genre change isn’t what’s hurting the sale numbers, and comparing this to the earlier games isn’t accurate as in the PS3 and PS2 era the games were physical only. The first game of the series to receive a digital release in Japan was Ishin!, in 2013.
I was just going to say too it has done better at debut than both Yakuza Kiwami 2 – a remake of what’s still considered by many to be the best in the series.
And it has done better than Judgement – brand new IP entirely that did receive a fair bit of marketing behind it, although to be fair, it is new IP and un-established.
But Yakuza in general has been in decline generally in terms of not hitting these bigger numbers at launch like before, though this is for the Asian market specifically, because it never took off in the west then, but now has ever since Yakuza 0, so its rising success in the west (finally) may balance this off if it doesn’t quite pick up in Asia in the near future like before, not to mention, it is no longer an exclusive now, it’s coming to the Xbox Live platform, following Steam, so this may further increase its portfolio.
I think Yakuza 7 was commendable for trying something new, but SEGA knew it was taking a risk with it doing less well at launch by making it a mainline series installment instead of a spin off to try something new instead of the same old fundamental style every release, but it was also bound to be a culture clash at some point, still it’s only about 70,000 units less than 6 at launch, not that huge.
I wouldn’t really bet too much on the western players, all they care about is LE FUNNY MEMES KIRYU-CHAAAAAAAN XDDDDD LELELELELE KIRYU IS AN AWKWARD VIRGIN JUST LIKE ME, I CAN SELF INSERT AS A HIM LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Nobody talks about the story of Yakuza 0 or the games released since, to them it’s all about the wacky and zany side stories and stuff you encounter in the first 25% of the game since most of them don’t even bother playing any further.
That said 7 has the potential to be a huge success in the west since they cranked up the wacky and zany dial to maximum.
Its because of its change of genre. Imagine form Beat Em Up that is not suitable for being an RPG now became an JRPG turn based game? This will not be a success in america canda and europe.
It has nothing to do with battle system. The serie is declining in japan as the ps4.
Yakuza Zero just reached 500k on Steam which is huge for the serie.
Yakuza will perform well in the west since it’s a new beginning, the Dragon Engine with 3 locations Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama whose maps are 3 times wider than usual.
Lots of changes, lot of content, sooner or later Yakuza 7 will be a success in the west.
Are these number physical sales only? Digital market is bigger nowadays.
Also, the PS2, PS3 and Switch are/is far more popular than the PS4 in Japan.
That can be a explanation to the lower (physical) sales numbers.
I still think the numbers are pretty good, compared to DBZ or any other game. I don’t understand the launch date though. Why in earth would you release a big game right after the holidays?
That could be another explanation 😉