Following up from Yakuza 3, SEGA would need something a bit more if they expected to beat the series best selling week one title, did Yakuza 4 manage to do it? Nagoshi reported that Yakuza 4 had the highest shipment for the series, so did the latest entry into the Yakuza series manage to break more than just faces? Read on!
SEGA’s been having quite a splash in the United Kingdom recently, a cumulating of several high profiles ranging from a heavy hitter from last year in the form of Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games, to the recent blockbusters of Aliens vs Predator and Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. But how did two new additions to the chart, the much heralded Yakuza 3 as well as Sonic Classic Collection, help out SEGA in the recent charts and did SEGA manage to hold onto the 25% of the top 40 individual format? Read on to find out!
What a good few weeks it’s been for SEGA in sales? With dominating the UK charts with several high profile releases, Alien vs Predator spearheaded that attack, so it should come as no surprise that it sold extremely well in America too. Now whilst not doing as well as it has done through out Europe, the 360 version of the title did manage over 190,000 in sales. Although the PS3 version is no where to be seen. The Wii version of Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games did over 100,000. No doubt SEGA will need to be sending out more to retailers sooner than later.
It’s not all good news though, as Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing failed to make the top 20, but like all good Sonic game, it could probably be a slow burner.
Aliens vs Predator has seen tremendous success for SEGA across all of Europe, but in particular, it’s sold very well for SEGA in the UK, not dropping out of the top 5 since releases three weeks ago, that title now resides number three in the British all formats charts. So it should come as no surprise to know that the title has done over 100,000 units and to be exact, that was just the Xbox360 version. ELSPA sales awards for February hands the silver award to the 360 version of AvP for getting past the 100,000 mark but another SEGA title also went for gold, as the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed sold over 200,000 units for SEGA in total since its release. All in all, a good few weeks with plenty of hits for SEGA, let’s see if they can carry on this fine form.
SEGA’s newest trailer for Yakuza 3 shows us the two locations you get to explore in and beat down any punks who come your way. Featuring Okinawa, as from Yakuza 3, Kazuma and Haruka’s permenant home address as well as Tokyo, the home of the Tojo Clan and several characters from Kazuma’s past.
Eager fans of the Yakuza series will soon get a chance to try out a segment of Shun Akiyama’s (Picture up top on the far left) story and several minigames in Yakuza 4, with the demo being announced for March 5th. But if you feel you want to take down punks with the Dragon of Dojima or want to try out the two new characters, there is a battle mode also available to try out all four characters. In a bit of older news, SEGA announced a new minigame “Let’s Make a Fighter” a play on SEGA’s “Let’s Make a X” sports series in Japan. You get to train fighters as Saejima (The long haired and big assassin) and help them try to make it all the way to the top, if they can become one of the top fighters in the tournament, you get to use them in tag team tournament battles, sounds good!
[Source: Andriasang for Yakuza 4 demo announcement] & [Source: Andriasang for Let’s Make a Fighter announcement]
It seems we may finally get a solid date for SEGA’s latest RPG developed by Obsidian. Schedule for release way back in 2009 and delayed, if my memory serves me right, upto three times, SEGA has finally penciled in a date, May 27th and May 28th for Australia and Europe respectively and a slightly later date of June 1st for North America. In the mean time we get to enjoy a snazzy new trailer that shows a little more about the world and the events occurring in Alpha Protocol.
It’s getting awfully close to the release date and you would think SEGA has completely forgotten they’ve got a DS version of the game coming out. Well in the span of a few days we’ve got the demo and now a trailer and for a Nintendo DS game, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing is indeed looking good. For those wondering when they can get their hands on the game, it’s available for purchase from 23rd February for America and 26th February for Europe and Austraila.
It’s been a while since we saw our last Yakuza 4 trailer, but no more! The latest trailer for the latest entry into the Yakuza 4 goes onto show the depth of the now much expanded Kamurocho from the underground to the top of various buildings. The trailer also shows the new move sets and HEAT moves able to be performed by the new characters and much more.
In SEGA’s latest trailer for the long overdue Yakuza 3, we get to have a look at the characters, old and new, that make up the complex storyline. From returning characters of Majima to Kazuma’s newest ally Rikiya, Kazuma going to have a job on his hand trying to stop an all out war from erupting within the Tojo Clan!
The last time we left Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games, SEGA confirmed they had shipped 5.67 million by the end of December. Well it seems that another milestone has been reached with SEGA announcing the title making it past the 6 million mark. It probably comes as no surprise then considering not only the popularity of both characters but also due to the fact that minigame collections are all round big sellers on the Wii.
At any rate, it seems like the sequel will manage to get to the lofty heights of over 10 million that the original reached.
I’m not quite sure how many of you out there have ever entered a game tournament, but a certain SEGA classic, Crazy Taxi, will be making an appearance as one of the games selected to appear at the Iron Man of Gaming 2010. But there’s more! The final mystery game that appears at the tournament is also a SEGA game from the looks of things. If you feel your particular set of gamer skills are enough to win the tournament or just a hardcore Crazy Taxi fan looking for a bit of competition, how about you give it a try?
SEGA have announced the release date to their new JRPG Resonance of Fate (Or End of Eternity in Japan). The new title comes from veteran RPG develop tri-ACE, known for their work on Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean. The game will be available from 26th March 2010, so if you’re interested in some gun battles spliced in with some role playing elements and strategy, you might want to check this one out.
Featuring All-Stars moves for several characters, from Doctor Robotnik’s Egg-O-Matic to Amigo’s Samba dance. And if you ever wondered what was Akira’s purpose to be sitting alongside Jacky, well you’ve got your answer now.
ThePatrick is known in the SEGA fandom in for his excellent translations of one particular series, Ryu Ga Gotoku, or Yakuza as we know it outside of Japan. Watch the Youtube video of his translation to find out what Kazuma is doing back in the world of Yakuza and the new characters he’ll get to meet along the way in Yakuza 4!