Yakuza and Judgment series localization producer Scott Strichart steps down

For all the wonderful writing that is in the Yakuza and Judgment franchise, it isn’t hard to notice that it comes straight from a Japanese company, mainly for a Japanese audience. And sometimes the transition is rocky when providing it for different languages. The team of RGG’s English localization team doesn’t give enough credit for the way they provide and translate the stories, characters, and events of the games and Scott Strichart (senior localization producer) has stepped down.

Yakuza 0 and Kiwami PC versions get free Deluxe Edition upgrades

Regardless of when you purchased Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami for PC through Steam, SEGA has upgraded all versions to the digital Deluxe Edition. This means if you take a peek in the game’s “Extras” folder you’ll find a digital manga, wallpapers and avatar icons.

All Yakuza PC games are now on sale through tomorrow, so head on over to Steam and browse the Best of Japan sale!

[Source: Siliconera]

Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami and Kiwami 2 coming to Xbox One and Xbox Game Pass

SEGA has just announced at X019 in London that SEGA America and Ryu Ga Gotoku studio will be bringing three Yakuza games not just to Xbox One and Xbox One X, but also the Xbox One Game Pass. If you don’t know what Game Pass is, its basically Microsoft’s SEGA Channel or Netflix service where you pay monthly to play all the games you want in a revolving number of titles.

This is huge news, now if only SEGA could port these games on the Nintendo Switch, then everyone will be happy!

Yakuza Kiwami releases to PC on February 19th – pre-orders now open

SEGA has officially revealed that the long teased Yakuza Kiwami, the remake of the PlayStation 2 classic Yakuza, will be releasing to Steam for PC on February 19th. The game is now available to pre-order and those who get it now will receive 10% off the £14.99 / $19.99 / €19.99 price, as well as bonus content including avatars, wallpapers and a digital manga.

After the successful release of Yakuza 0 for PC, the PC release of Yakuza Kiwami is sure to be a hit. Will you be picking it up? Let us know in the comments below!

Check the full press release out after the break.

Leak reveals Yakuza Kiwami as free PS Plus game for November

Somebody at Sony jumped the gun, as the November graphic was used temporarily on the PS Plus page promoting the free games subscribers will be able to download. Listed on the official PlayStation site are Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition and Yakuza Kiwami as November’s PS Plus free games. The graphic has since been pulled, but various sites and people on social media managed to save the graphic.

This is great news, as Yakuza is continuing to gain more and more fans and a free release of the remake of the original game is sure to bring in even more fans!

Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami joining “PlayStation Hits” budget branding


Growing up and owning the first PlayStation was a huge thing in the USA because Sony had the ‘greatest hits’ budget branding on games, making a lot of great games available for only $19.99. That tradition is now continuing with ‘PlayStation Hits’ brand games that will launch at $19.99 USD / $19.99 CAD / €19.99 / £15.99, the new budget brand hits June 28th in America and July 18th in Europe. In the past, ‘Greatest Hits’ was a badge that meant the games sold over a certain threshold in that specific market (PSone era it was 250k units in 9 months). No idea if they set one for these titles but they all seem to be rather popular games.

Hit the jump to see the full list of games, but Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 0 will be joining the new ‘rebrand’ budget title line-up!:

SEGA News Bits: Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami & Valkyria Chronicles 4 Coming To PC Discussion

SEGA Europe teased that they had a big PC announcement to reveal during the PC Gamer conference, usually I always assume this would have to do with their in-house titles like Football Manager, Total War series and so forth, but this time we got a massive surprise. SEGA is doubling down on Japanese PC games by releasing not just Valkyria Chronicles 4 but also Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami. On this video of the SEGA News Bits, we discuss all the information known about the ports and my general thoughts on the announcements.

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SEGA announces Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami and Valkyria Chronicles 4 for PC


While Yakuza franchise has had a great lifespan being a PlayStation only exclusive franchise, it seems that SEGA is changing that to open the franchise to a brand new audience. Yakuza 0 will be hitting PC on August 1st! That will be followed by Yakuza Kiwami and Valkyria Chronicles 4 later. It will be great to play these titles with beefed up hardware. Yes, SEGA has confirmed that Yakuza 0 will run at 4k, 60 fps. Get hyped. Yakuza 0 will cost $19.99 and if you pre-order it now you get 10% off! The only negative about the announcement is that this title has Denuvo DRM, if that is an issue to you of course.

These two Yakuza games run on a older engine, what I really want to see is a PC port of Yakuza 6 since the new ‘Dragon Engine’ was a bit much for the PlayStation 4. But I’m pretty happy with Yakuza 0 and yes, I will play it again.

SEGA News Bits: Favorite SEGA Games of 2017

Its that time of year, when people online decide to talk about their favorite games of the year. While we here at SEGAbits play a wide arrange of games, we obviously adore SEGA games. So on this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss our favorite SEGA games of 2017. Which game did we decide to give our golden Opa-Opa trophy to? Watch the video and find out. What was your favorite SEGA game of 2017 and why? Let us know in the comments below!

If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a like so it shows up on more like minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that YouTube algorithm is.

SEGA’s Fist of the North Star confirmed to run on Yakuza 0’s engine, not Yakuza 6

thumb-chara01-modalSEGA held another live stream the other day to confirm some misconceptions revolving around their recent Yakuza Studio announcements which included a new Fist of the North Star game. At the time it was highly believed to be running on the ‘Dragon Engine’ which is the latest in-house engine created by the studio, this was mostly due to Yakuza Kiwami 2 using the engine.

So why will Fist of the North Star use the older, Yakuza 0/Kiwami engine? According to studio head Toshihiro Nagoshi its because the team has more experience with the ‘Kiwami engine’ and its better for celshaded graphics. Also note that the Dragon Engine is still under development, while the older engine already achieves 60fps at 1080p on the PlayStation 4 while Yakuza 6 ran at 30 fps.

Yakuza Kiwami now available in the Americas and Europe for PlayStation 4

SEGA’s remake of the original classic that kicked off the popular Yakuza franchise, titled Yakuza Kiwami, releases today in the Americas and Europe for the PlayStation 4! To celebrate, SEGA has released a special launch trailer which can be seen above. As mentioned in the SEGAbits review, Yakuza Kiwami improves on the original game in almost all aspects and features additional plot points, includes the option to save anywhere and is the first time the game can be heard in Japanese outside of Japan.

If you still have not ordered the game, the special Yakuza Kiwami steelbook edition is available to purchase for a cool $29.88.

Have you picked the game up yet? If so, tell us what you think of it in the comments below or over on our Discord server or message board.

SEGA releases free DLC schedule for Yakuza Kiwami

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SEGA has revealed that Yakuza Kiwami will be getting four content packs post launch, something that they have been doing with the series since Yakuza 3. The add-on content will be received as game updates, after its released, so no need to go into the PSN store, and deal with adding the content to your account.

If you hit the jump you can see all the cool free DLC content for Yakuza Kiwami like playing as shirtless Kiryu, having Majima’s iconic snake skin jacket and more. Remember that Yakuza Kiwami retails for $29.99, Amazon Prime pre-order is only $23.99 for the steelbook version!

Yakuza 0 is 30% off for PlayStation Plus members

Yakuza 0 fighting stylesYakuza 0 is having a sale for PlayStation Plus members, giving them a discount of 30%! So how much will the game end up costing you? $41.99 and the sale ends on August 1st, so if you want the game digitally and want it for a discount price you should bite on this sale. If you are unsure about the game, you can always check out our Yakuza 0 review (plot spoiler: Its great). You can also get the physical version for $47.99 on Amazon if that is more to your liking.

Yakuza 0 is also a good entry game for anyone that has never played a Yakuza title and with Yakuza Kiwami coming out in the end of next month, its the perfect time to join the Yakuza family. Sake is on us, give the game a shot if you haven’t!

Yakuza Kiwami digital pre-orders nets you free theme

Theme_1_1499447461If you are planning on picking up the digital version of Yakuza Kiwami, you might want to look at pre-ordering it for $29.99/£29.99 if you care about PlayStation 4 themes. If you pre-order the game right now you will get a Yakuza Kiwami digital pre-order theme that features both Kazuma Kiryu and Akira Nishikiyama.

I personally recommend all users get the day one steel book edition of Yakuza Kiwami, since its the same price as the digital and you get a cool limited edition case. But, if you are the type of person that hates having physical games, having a cool free theme is a nice extra. Yakuza Kiwami comes out on August 29, 2017; only on PlayStation 4.

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[Source: Siliconera]