Stepan

Wow, they really spared no expense with the special editions! But, maybe it is a bit crazy to pay €200 for a game that regularly sells for €4? I know - it's not about the game, but all the merchandise, which looks very promising.

@Czar_Khastik I think we ought to be happy that SEGA released I + II physically at all, maybe in 2026 it would be digital downolad only. Ok, no special edition, but mini poster at least. Sad thing is how long I + II sat in local game shops..

@Gr8VngnzN4esAngr I am another big fan of Amazon series, baffled by all the hate. It probably wasn't friendly enough to western audiences. Thing just can't be bad, when a man who lived in Kabukicho for some time sat at the director's chair. And I really like how they didn't just copy the original game story, but morphed it into something slightly different and interesting, and more fitting for a series/movie. Only the finish was a bit too heavy and prolonged.

Wow, the music catalogue is really cool, they even acknowledged SEGA Rally 2, which never got re-release unlike most of the other games on the music menu!

I further look at the new financial presentation and it looks like this year, they will release Persona 4 Revival and Total War Warhammer 40000 in addition to Kiwami and probably next year Stranger Than Heaven and Total War Medieval III. And maybe some Sonic, which is not mentioned but seems logical.

@themightyant I agree, plus there is finite pool, maybe even shrinking pool of console/pc gamers who regularly buy games.

From SEGA's side, these informations seems to be more focused on shareholder relations, trying to explain their strategy for growth. I think their videogame branch is doing good, accounting for 3/4 of Sega Sammy's bussines. If something is rapidly declining it is Rovio - which they bought to big fanfares two years ago and it is on a downward trajectory since then. And pachinko is also behind it's heyday.

@AgentMantis pro-AI, while RGGS (and in all probability Nagoshi as well) put emphasis on the human aspect and voice acting of real actors..

@Cikajovazmaj Fair enough, but the similarity is kind of a point for the series. The studio definitely tries something different all the time with titles like Kenzan, Ishin, Binary Domain, Fist of the North Star or Stranger than Heaven, but then returns to the 'comfort' of Kamurocho. And Nagoshi did the same.

@Porco Yeah, it always seemed very uncertain, expecially when they stressed Nagoshi is targeting AAA single player experience, which doesn't seem to align with NetEase.

Now I think about it, maybe Nagoshi Studio expected this and that is why they revealed the game at Game Awards, just to shout out 'we are here' to potential investors.

@AinsleyE Every investor can work with sales numbers for Yakuza series and estabilish quite precisely if it has potential.

@BamBamBaklava89 That would be ideal, but again, I am afraid today's Sony has interest only in big franchises that sell in tenths of millions. Unfortunately.

@Cikajovazmaj Despite some missteps, RGGS games are still high quality, polished products. Really can't be called 'slop'.

Not good, but sadly this was to be expected. This is the merit of working for big companies like SEGA - despite all the missteps and criticism from mainstream gamers, they know how the business works and aren't afraid to put money and time into development and treat the employees respectably.

But I can see why Nagoshi was ready to leave as well, when he became too 'executive' and distant from game making itself. I wonder if the same could happen to Mr. Yokoyama, who recently gained the SEGA Senior Vice President title.

I like how the video shows the compression of Japan map. From mountains to city to mountains without all the time on freeways and traffic jams . I just don't get why they chose Saleen of all brands instead of titular GR GT and also - the world feels kind of lifeless.

I believe that during development, Gran Turismo or parts of it are normally being run on PC machines, so it is not that big a deal if they try to run it on PC-based hadheld console. And, it is surely a difference if the engine just somehow runs on Switch 2 and if they wanted to do consumer version, which would need several years of additional work and fine tuning.

This looks bad for any future WRC games. After the end of rally branch of Codemasters, the licence returned to Nacon..

As a fan of classic 3, I am still a bit afraid of all the changes, but I bought the game nonetheless and enjoyed some 7 hours with Dark Ties and another few of Emergency Call Ambulance. One day, I will gather the courage to play the main course.

I can see their thinking: if it's ok to produce niche Pro version, why not do niche disc version as well.

@MrPeanutbutterz It is known that Crazy Taxi is developed by SEGA Sapporo and JSR is also said to be in-house project, so they surely won't outsource everything.

The series really embraced the gaming inspiration in the fourth movie, so now back to games . But, wouldn't LEGO Wick be better?

I am a bit nervous about (japanese) SEGA games being absent from Game Awards as well as yesterday's State of Play. I hope they just didn't want to take the spotlight from Sonic Crossworlds and Kiwami 3 and have something big planned for the rest of 2026!

@Dogbreath Yeah, SEGA games are obviously never bad, but I just don't like original JSR. The influence JSR's visuals had on countless games is insane, but I don't like the principle of trying to jump somewhere while being shot at with rockets. Let's hope the new one will be good!

@Kitsmith Concerning Daytona, I have big faith in driving parts of Gang of Dragon with Nagoshi-san being the designer and producer of Daytonas and Scud Race For SEGA, I think Crazy Taxi is their priority now regarding racing games.

@PuppetMaster They effectively already made 0 Kiwami with Director's Cut. Maybe that's the idea: they will be releasing 'Director's Cuts' or other kind of remasters instead of 'Kiwamis' and that will be it. Other thing is, new version of Ishin! was also released as Ishin! Kiwami in Japan.

So, Yokoyama-san doesn't want to do more Kiwamis and he doesn't want to do LaD 9 either, in favour of 'different line'? Isn't that just what Nagoshi-san wanted to do with Judgments and now Gang of Dragon? I am kind of confused!

But then again, with Pirate Yakuza out in the wild, I am afraid what 'dfferent lines' could mean.

From what I see I will be better off avoiding this. As an old school fan, I don't like the all the alterations and crazyness added to the original game. It seems like the series is deviating from the orginal 'serious crime drama' premise. Best thing would be if you could choose between just reworked graphics and this complete remake .

It is somehow funny that the biggest multiplatform news from Nintendo Direct is this. Formerly, they revealed at least something like Katamari games at these presentations.

@themightyant The japanese market is strange, one one hand, PS5 is supposedly too expensive there (until that special budget model came) and on the other so many of buyers go for Pro. I guess either they don't have the luxury to own big TV set with console or they go straight for the better options.

@Czar_Khastik I was just playing on PS3 yesterday and I am happy with it with the exception of creaking controller . This only shows how the technical evolution slows down, sometimes there is less difference between PS3 and PS5 than there was with PS2 and PS3.

@Shepherd_Tallon @Czar_Khastik OLED is a must for PS5. I like the most how strong in-game light literally flashes out of the screen into the room when playing in dark.

Nice article! Looking forward to Shutoko Battle on PS5!

@tameshiyaku Yeah, I hate Pirates as well.
I guess the fighting in Kiwami 3 is not that bad. But sometime during Judgments the system started to be lighter and more athletic and quite different from old games.
Regardless, I agree that K3 is well engineered (especially considering it is only a side project for the studio) and if someone never played Yakuza 3, it is a no brainer.

@nessisonett Just what I thought.

But yesterday I tried the demo, the graphics seemed ok, but I really don't like the overly crazy and 'light' battle system similar to Pirate Yakuza. Original Yakuza 3 had slow and weighty brawls. What happened to the Virtua Fighter heritage? (just when they are working on new VF). This game is strange.

@PaperAlien Why would Sony be reviving Ridge Racer? If anything, the opposite happened when Namco licensed Everybody's Golf or Patapon from Sony.

To be honest, I don't like this trailer. But I have fond memories of Genki racers on PS2 and I have even placed digital pre-order so I hope the game turns out to be good!

@Reeneman It's over 140 GB now, at least on PS5.

Looking forward to play GT7 tomorrow. Even though I personally prefer road cars.

@Silenos That's right, the game is getting quite big, but it is still not as stupid as Tekken 8, which occupies the space with single-use story videos forever.

@Rich33 That's right, for example Mark Cerny talks about AI data processing and data exchange between chips and memory, the principles, speeds.. Things like this can be worked upon even when there is final chip architecture, memory size etc.

It would make sense to take the time. Just look at the position Steam machine found itself in and the hardware market is going to be only more complicated in the future!

Where are SEGA's lawyers?

@tameshiyaku 'Yakuza has un/fortunately reached the level of popularity where it's become cool to slam it. Gamer internet discourse is just the worst.'

That's just what I think. Until the series was niche (or semi-niche) in the west, we were just extremely happy new title releases in english at all and no one was nitpicking about details!

So, I get it the game gets review bombed because of Kagawa and not bright colours? I hope it is like that. Anyway, on PS store it is not that bad, actual Yakuza 3 having 4.39 and Kiwami 3 demo at 4.23 is not that big a difference.

@RoomWithaMoose It can be said that Yakuza has been annual since the beggining, Yakuza (2005), Yakuza 2 (2006)... No problem with that for me. Maybe it is more like western fans [on this forum] who got into the series in the last decade became a bit tired of it?

@1UP-HUSKY Right, true SEGA blue sky aesthetic.

It seems like SEGA bet on demos recently - last year there were ones for everything from Pirate Yakuza and Shinobi to Sonic Crossworlds.

I just hope there are some Power Surge titles slated for the rest of the year.

I think the only way is to not make only big, 7 years in the making titles like Intergalactic or Physint or but also something a bit smaller like Astro Bot. After all, Clair Obscur was smaller by budget and team size and it 'overtook' the biggest AAAs.

Great news! I am looking forward to another newly emulated racing game after Daytona 2! For me, this is much better than all the new sidequests.

I thought Nagoshi will go for somthing a little different and here we are in Kamurocho again. Just..

• with Nagoshi's current small studio, the game will be either very small, or - it will take many many years until this is released, or, maybe AI?
• the main hero looks too godfather-like antagonistic for me, doesn't seem that relatable like Kiryu, Ichiban or Yagami

@johncalmc Wow, platinumed them all? I don't know, I always complete the story and that's it.

@themightyant That's curious, I think the jump from PS2 to PS3 was huge for these games, so I can't imagine not trying 3 or 4.

@PuppetMaster Do you think Kurohyō would be worth it? I was always under the impression it was typical PSP game in being just diluted and simplified low budget PS2/PS3 game.

Firstly, I played Yakuza on PS2 in 2006 and.. I was not a big fan at the time, I played mostly racing games and platformers then.

In 2012 I bought Yakuza 4 for PS3 and I totally fell in love with it - roaming around real-life city, visiting shops and bars etc. and enjoying the captivating story. It was all very fresh then.

Later I bought all the games and I liked both Judgment games above all the rest. Now, I am not sure about all these remakes and remasters, but I very much look forward to new titles!

Strange thing is, now when I know it's completely fake, all the small nonsenses like invisible washed plate, forward-loaded crate on forklift or gargantuan bicycle annoy me .

@Chip-Douglas Maybe they mentioned legal actions to backup their claim they don't have anything to do with the whole thing, just to distance themselves completely? Another thing is, it misuses not only Ys', but also SEGA's intellectual property.

I'm looking over and over and most of what is shown is really in line with Shenmue III. The only non-traditional scene is the battle with many soldiers. The clothing customization feature looks quite similar to Air Twister, that would also align.

Strange thing is that the trailer is dubbed in english. I can't see any other possible reason than it is becuse the video is meant for possible publishers or backers.

I suppose we will see if there is a trailer at Game Awards next week, I am sure that would be the place of announcement, so we will see if Shenmue IV is real.

As for this video, to me it looks like Ys' pitch for publishers or backers and not so much final game, but I can be wrong. It is not even that big of a stretch to think Ys could have used AI for pitch video as mentioned above?

I was hyped by arcticle in Retro Gamer, then downloaded the demo on PS5 as soon as it was available and it was big disappoinment, visuals are interesting, but the handling didn't suit me at all, so it was deleted right away. Arcade racers are all about the smooth handling for me.

Yay, what an early Christmas gift!, the only problem being the game is getting bigger and bigger on PS5's storage, may be time for additional SSD or PS5 Pro for me .