Fourth Yakuza Video Game Heading to Playstation 3

Before Yakuza Kenzan and Yakuza 3 are even announced in North America, Sega is already revealing the next mainline game in the Yakuza series. Yakuza 4 is coming to the Playstation 3 in the near future. The Yakuza series began on the Playstation 2 with the original title during 2005 in Japan. Known as Ryū ga Gotoku (which translates into "Like a Dragon" in English), the game can be best described as Shenmue meets Grand Theft Auto. Sehnmue is an open world game set in Japan. Ironically, the Sega Dreamcast game was developed and published by Sega. You could say that Yakuza is the spiritual successor to the Shenmue series.

Aside from taking the deep fighting system and eastern setting from Shenmue, Yakuza is also influenced by the very violent and vulgar nature of the Grand Theft Auto series. The unique combination resulted in one of the best-selling video game series in Japan. In North America, however, sales were disappointingly low for the first game in Yakuza series when it was released in 2006.

For that reason, Sega initially were reluctant at bring Yakuza 2 over to the west. A big part of their decision was in the hands of Sony. At that time, Sony restricts foreign video games from being published in North America without first getting English voices. Fortunately, they lift the restrictions at the end of the Playstation 2's lifespan and Sega were able to publish a subtitle-only version of Yakuza 2 two years after its initial release in Japan.

Unfortunately, it looks like Sony is reinforcing the strict localization rule for the Playstation 3. As a result, Sega is reluctant to localize Yakuza Kenzan (released in 2008) and Yakuza 3 (released earlier this year) in North America. This is because the costs of adding in English voices aren't worth the potentially low sales.

The best Yakuza fans can hope for is for Sony to lift the localization restrictions on the Playstation 3 like they did with the Playstation 2. The development team within Sega isn't waiting around, however, as they are already working on the third Yakuza game on the Playstation 3.

Not much is known about Yakuza 4 so far other than that it has the subtitle: "The One Who Succeeds the Legend", which could mean there might be a new main character. Since Yakuza Kenzan and Yakuza 3 were released in back-to-back years, a 2010 release date is reasonable for Yakuza 4 on the Playstation 3.

Just like the other two Yakuza games on the Playstation 3, there is no release date in sight for the newest title in North America.