Gamers who know what Yakuza is, who Nagoshi is, and will understand the finer details of the game that they can push. And I'm talking about using Magazines and internet as in getting interviews and articles in there, where they can actually showcase the features of the game.
There are plenty of CoD fans who buy more than 2-3 games a year....there are some who play CoD exclusively of course but not all. Probably not the majority, in fact.
Anyway, if you want to market it to Yakuza fans you're talking about 100,000-200,000 people, at most. Not a big number. Saying it's a shooter from the director of Super Monkey Ball is also going to trigger more of a "wtf" reaction than anything else, I think, lol.
I'm not saying we need a media blitz but a basic TV campaign (Bayonetta had one, MadWorld had one,) would work wonders.
Here's the thing. This is a game people need to see in motion. The name is bland, the boxart is bland, the characters look bland. Print ads will not sell this game. You will need to show it in motion.
Look at Vanquish...game had an amazing gameplay mechanic (the low HP slow-mo) that was later copied for games like Mass Effect 2, as well as its awesome slides. Sega of America refused to do TV ads, so people never got to see these ideas in motion, thereefore, had no idea what was so distinct about the game. Vanquish was one of Sega's biggest missed opportunities this gen.
Sega Europe advertised Vanquish;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_dlj5MYI5MSomething like that would have really been awesome in America. Binary Domain should have something like that.
