Project Redemption - Petition for SEGA to expand Yakuza IPs in America

[Rob95Daly]

Honestly I want a lot of these things but I can't see them happening, maybe one of them at the most. If Sega don't have the time or money to do them I'd rather they just put all their efforts into getting Yakuza 5 over. I know Kenzan and the PSP games are great as I played them but I really just want to be able to continue the main story to know what happens, I'd pick getting Yakuza 5 over getting all the above selections.

[jpoppawusc]

Not to be redundant, but the two things have nothing to do with one another. When you talk about wanting SEGA to concentrate its efforts on completing Yakuza 5, that's SEGA of Japan and Nagoshi's Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. The petition only pertains to existing content that SEGA of America has failed to localize. In other words, SEGA of America taking the time to localize this content would have absolutely zero impact on the development schedule of Yakuza 5.

Besides, what else would you have the American office work on until 5 is complete? They don't develop Alien, Football Manager, or Total War games; once again, they only publish the content that another studio develops on its own timetable. With none of those games on the immediate horizon (even Colonial Marines has been pushed back again), I honestly don't know what else they have to keep their [suddenly smaller] staff busy.

[Deekman]

Until 5 is complete I'd want them working on Kenzan and a digital release of Black Panther 1 and 2! Seriously those games are great! Day 1 purchases.

Slapping a non HD PS2 version of 1 and 2 on the PSN would be next on my list just to give everyone who never had a chance to play them a chance to.

[Captain Epic]

By the way, just to illustrate how important the Yakuza brand should be to SEGA...

In the recent press release, SEGA referred to Sonic, Football Manager, Total War, and Aliens as its focus titles. Yet, when you look at the sales figures from these franchises, you can see that they're no more profitable than Yakuza. In fact, they're probably far less profitable in some cases.

According to VGChartz, Total War games typically average between 45,000 and 110,000 copies sold in North America. For comparison, Yakuza 3 sold 180,000 and 4 came out with 100,000 after several months on the market. Aliens: Infestation for DS only sold 40,000 copies in North America, and its global figure was an unimpressive 70,000, since most of its exposure was here in the United States. Meanwhile, Football Manager 2012 only managed 10,000 copies in the US, despite its global sales being 10 times that figure. Sonic is the only one who consistently sells more than 150,000 copies on every installment, but for a mascot title, that's still not great.

Yakuza has at least shown that its core (numbered) titles will reach a million copies worldwide, with about 12% of those being attributed to North American sales. That easily makes it one of SEGA's most important franchises, just under the legacy hedgehog. And again, if SEGA of America ignores valuable Yakuza content that could be quickly localized for American profits, then why are they wasting time with Football Manager or Aliens? They don't even own the Aliens license exclusively, thus lowering the potential profit margin on published content.

So, one more time, I want to extend the invitation to sign the Yakuza petition, for the good of us all!

http://www.change.org/petitions/sega...uza-in-america

VGChartz is an unreliable source of sales figures, so you shouldn't refer to that to see how well the games are selling. The Total War series has sold approximately 7.5 million copies worldwide - http://content.yudu.com/A1w07v/MCV16...sources/46.htm - making it a much bigger seller than the Yakuza series.

Shogun 2 Total War sold over 600,000 copies - http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/total-...1,2322967.html

Empire Total War sold over 810,000 in 2009 - http://www.segasammy.co.jp/japanese/...nal.pdf#page=7

The Football Manager series has sold over 7 million copies - http://content.yudu.com/A1ttw8/MCV09...esources/8.htm
The reason it doesn't sell well in america is because the game is a european football (soccer) management simulator and soccer isn't exactly the most popular sport in america But it's hugely popular in Europe which is why it sells so well.

Yakuza could never dream of getting close to these kinds of figures outside Japan. In Japan, each entry usually sells several hundred thousand copies, which is big over there. Meanwhile, Yakuza 2 sold just 40,000 copies in US. I can't find any legit sales figures for the other entries in the series, but I doubt they hit much higher than around 100,000.

150,000 for Sonic? ...lol! I promise you they sell a lot more than that. In fact, in the link I gave for the Empire Total War figures, it has the Sonic Unleashed sales figures which stand at a huge 2,450,000. It also has the Mario + Sonic olympics which is a huge 4,210,000.

So, yeah, the Yakuza series isn't important, financially speaking, for SEGA (doesn't make them a lot of money). Localisation costs wouldn't cost too much, which is probably the only reason the last few yakuza games have actually had a western release, but due to the financial situation SEGA can't really afford to put time and money into a series which doesn't give them a lot of profit, thus they stick with the best selling games (which will give them maximum profits) like Sonic, Total War and Football Manager.

But like I keep saying - Let's wait and see what happens SEGA might decide it's worth the cost of localisation after all... Time will tell.

[jpoppawusc]

I understand what you're saying Epic, and I always value your input. However, the market in question is under SEGA of America, and when they are staking their success on a handful of IPs, it's important to note that those same IPs don't perform as well in the North American market as they do worldwide. VGChartz is not always reliable, I agree, but I'm comparing apples to apples by pulling both Yakuza's and the other IPs' sales figures from the same source. It should all equal out in comparison. You cited awfully high numbers for the other IPs but claimed that Yakuza's sales figures from VGChartz were probably accurate. That's not apples to apples. You also said that Football Manager doesn't sell well in America, but since global figures don't mean much to our market, why should SEGA of America focus efforts on it? I hope you see what I'm saying here, and I'm not trying to argue with you. Sales figures can easily be biased in either direction, and I simply wished to draw a comparison from a single, accessible source.

[Captain Epic]

I understand what you're saying Epic, and I always value your input. However, the market in question is under SEGA of America, and when they are staking their success on a handful of IPs, it's important to note that those same IPs don't perform as well in the North American market as they do worldwide. VGChartz is not always reliable, I agree, but I'm comparing apples to apples by pulling both Yakuza's and the other IPs' sales figures from the same source. It should all equal out in comparison. You cited awfully high numbers for the other IPs but claimed that Yakuza's sales figures from VGChartz were probably accurate. That's not apples to apples. You also said that Football Manager doesn't sell well in America, but since global figures don't mean much to our market, why should SEGA of America focus efforts on it? I hope you see what I'm saying here, and I'm not trying to argue with you. Sales figures can easily be biased in either direction, and I simply wished to draw a comparison from a single, accessible source.

For some reason, I was under the impression that both SEGA of American and Europe were affected. If Europe isn't affected it's strange they even bothered mentioning Football Manager because it only really sells in Europe.

[jpoppawusc]

Well, you're partially correct. The European division was definitely affected, but the statement about restructuring came from SEGA of America, which was hit much harder than the UK. That's why the statement is confusing. Football Manager shouldn't even be relevant in the US, yet it was listed as one of SEGA of America's focus titles. In my opinion, SEGA is just feeling a little lost right now...

[Juhani1982]

Kenzan! Thats all i NEED.

[IrishNinja]

yeah, Kenzan hands-down. I've still got to play my imported copy, not looking forward to youtube + gamefaqs guides but i love the series, and i've been told this is one of the best ones.
A chance to replay 1 & 2 in HD is totally 2nd place, though.

[jpoppawusc]

By the way, thanks to everyone on this thread for helping to support the petition. We would really like to reach 100 signatures before the weekend to keep momentum as high as possible. If you haven't already read the petition or signed, please follow the link below.

http://www.change.org/petitions/sega...uza-in-america
>>> SEGA Project Redemption - Sign the Petition to Support Future Yakuza Content for America! <<<