Every fan of Yakuza from the beginning will confirm it: In the West, the series created by Toshihiro Nagoshi comes from very (very) far away. While American and European players sometimes had doubts about the release of the series games on this side of the planet for several years, they are now expected to receive the games at the same time as Japanese players. It seems that SEGA is no longer lacking in ambition for Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio games.
Also read: SEGA read Metacritic’s Editor of the Year, thank you Persona and Yakuza
Like many other companies, SEGA recently released its latest financial results. These numbers show that SEGA Sammy’s console and PC video games branch is doing very well. After these announcements, the Japanese publisher took part in the traditional Question-and-answer session with investors.
While asked how sales of SEGA games can be brought to the level of critical reception they have recently received globally, the publisher stated that they believe the solution is available in cross-platform releases, multiple languages, and simultaneously across the internet lies world of its games. To illustrate its new strategy, SEGA takes its ambitions regarding the Yakuza series as an example (words translated and shared by the site) Central person):
In the past, the Japanese version of a yakuza game was first released. The game was then sold successively in other regions with different degrees of localization, e.g. B. Presence or absence of synchronization or localization in different languages. By launching a game on multiple platforms and in multiple languages at the same time, the company can focus and thus reduce its marketing costs once they have been fired off over a long period of time. Additionally, the PC market, which was once dominated by Steam, has evolved into a business environment where we can expand our revenue to other platforms like Epic Games. Hence, we believe that we are now able to aim for 2-3 million unit sales over the life of a game that has historically sold 1 million units worldwide.
Realistic goal?
Since SEGA states that it intends to hit such numbers at the end of the “career” of games like Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s, it means that various promotions and other price cuts will be taken into account. Even so, SEGA now regards Yakuza as one of its mainstays, which is great news for fans of the series.
As a reminder, the first game from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio to benefit from this new strategy is Lost Judgment. This second installment in the Yakuza spin-off series will be available worldwide on September 24th in nine languages (including French) on PS5, Xbox Series X | S, PS4 and Xbox One released.
What do you think of this new SEGA strategy? Do you think it will bear fruit? Do you think 2-3 million copies sold for a yakuza is an achievable goal? What do you think it would take to take the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio series to a new dimension in terms of sales? Tell us everything in the comments below.
