Author Archives: Draikin

Yakuza Ishin Demo Featured Image

Yakuza Ishin PS3 Demo Arriving on February 13th in Japan

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During a presentation at the Sony Building in Ginza, Yakuza Ishin’s producer Masayoshi Yokoyama and director Hiroyuki Sakamoto announced that a demo for the PlayStation 3 version of the game will be made available on the Japanese PlayStation Store on February 13th, a few days from now. At the moment it’s not clear if Sega also intends to release a PlayStation 4 demo. The game is set to launch on February 22 in Japan on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. As of yet there’s been no word on a possible localization of the title.

Project Diva f and f 2nd Boxart

Project Diva f and Project Diva f 2nd Competing for Sales?

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Last week, Sega of America revealed a new trailer for the English version of Project Diva f. A few days later Sega of Japan also posted a new trailer for Project Diva f 2nd, which has currently only been confirmed for release in Japan. Both games will be released in March, so the timing window of the English release of Project Diva f might not be ideal. In the comments on the PlayStation blog post for the trailer of the original Project Diva f, we can see some people state that they won’t buy the game because it’s being released as a PSN digital download only, or because they already intend to import Project Diva F/f 2nd instead. We can also see comments from others that intend to double dip and buy the English version of the game for the PS Vita despite already buying it on PS3.

It’ll remain to be seen what this means for the sales of the game. An important factor here is of course going to be the game’s price, and at this point we don’t know yet how much the PS Vita version will cost. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the PS3 digital download version is still being sold at its original price. That’s probably a good sign, seeing how poor sales often result in a rapid discount of a game only months after its release. However, trying to sell the game at a high price might not be the right approach for the upcoming PS Vita version. The Vita isn’t selling particularly well outside of Japan and many Project Diva fans have already bought either the Japanese version of Project Diva F/f or the English version on PS3. It’ll be interesting to see what price Sega intends to sell the game at and whether fans will end up skipping the English version of Project Diva f and import Project Diva f 2nd instead. In any case, the sales of the English version of Project Diva f will be an important factor in deciding the future of the franchise outside of Japan. If you plan to buy either of these games, let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear our readers’ opinion on the matter!

Below are the two trailers mentioned earlier. The first one is the official English trailer for Project Diva f on the PS Vita. The one after that is a 4 minute trailer for the Japanese version of both Project Diva f 2nd and Project Diva F 2nd, detailing all the various aspects of the game.

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA f coming to PS Vita - Trailer

★2014年3月27日発売！『初音ミク -Project DIVA- F 2nd』最新映像！★

SEGAbits & Segalization partnership

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Hi all Segalization readers! For those that haven’t read the news on SEGAbits already, the following is a copy of the article we posted there that explains the new partnership between our websites:

Some of you may have heard about Segalization, our new fan campaign that focuses on promoting the localization of Japanese Sega games. The project has already gone live a while ago, and today we’d like to formally announce a new partnership with our friends at SEGAbits. Other than having both websites link to each other, this partnership means you may find Segalization staffers occasionally contributing articles to SEGABits, which may or may not involve titles or news related to Segalization’s mission. In this first article, we’d like to talk a bit about the origins and goals of our campaign/website.

Segalization actually has its origins in a discussion thread in the Valkyria Chronicles subsection of the official SEGA forums. During the earlier half of 2013, a handful of visitors there often talked about news relating to Valkyria Chronicles 3 being released in the West. With the localized version remaining absent from SEGA’s line-up of games, the idea of creating a Valkyria Chronicles fansite meant to rally fans of the series began to circulate. But it wasn’t just Valkyria Chronicles 3 that wasn’t being localized. Fans of other series expressed their desire for games like Yakuza 5 and Phantasy Star Online 2 to be released outside of Japan as well. Bolstered by the success of SEGA’s Facebook campaign for Project DIVA fans prior to Project DIVA F’s localization announcement, the project that came to be known as Segalization was underway. Instead of just one game, the campaign would focus on multiple Sega games that have yet to be released outside of Japan.

The titles currently covered on our website are a reflection of Sega games noted to be desired by fans around the world. These games cover a variety of gameplay experiences. Yakuza 5 and Yakuza: Ishin from the popular story-driven action RPG series are titles we hope to see localized. The same applies to the successful MMO Phantasy Star Online 2 and the upcoming Sega and tri-Ace project Phantasy Star Nova for the Vita. Following up on the successful localization of Project DIVA F/f for the PS3/Vita, the localization of the next title in the series, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd would be enthusiastically welcomed. In the interest of giving the Sakura Wars series a second chance in the West and allowing fans to play localized versions of the earlier entries, we are asking for the first Sakura Wars title to be brought to the West. And of course, we hope to play through the unrecorded side of the Second Europan War in Valkyria Chronicles 3. This is a lineup that may receive additions in the future especially as Sega continues to make more games, so be on the lookout for an expanding web of titles!

We also launched a petition to gather signatures to convince Sega to localize more of their games, one which we’d like to ask you to sign if you haven’t done so! Aside from our presence on Facebook and Twitter, we have also added our own forum to discuss the games featured on our website, or anything else related to our campaign. And to complement our news posts related to the games featured on our website, we also plan to offer more unique content such as editorials, personal staff pieces and new ideas for the campaign.

Segalization is a fansite that hopes to see gamers happy through more localizations, and serve as a structured rallying point for fans of games that have yet to be released. The site is currently staffed by myself as the website administrator, along with InTheSky and Kuronoa who also contribute to the site’s operations. We hope to perfect our mission by including more participants to our website, and we want to do right by SEGA fans! To end this first article, we’d like to express our thanks to SEGAbits for the partnership between our websites, and we hope both websites will continue to grow and deliver more and better content for all you Sega fans out there!

EGM Rumor: Possible Yakuza 5 Localization by Atlus! (Updated)

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While this is certainly just a rumor at this point, EGM’s latest issue reports that Atlus may be gearing up to localize Yakuza 5. This would certainly be very big news for us and all the Yakuza fans out there still waiting to see the game localized. It would also be the first time we see Atlus work on localizing a Sega IP after Sega-Sammy acquired the company last year. Atlus has been quite successful in the past with their game localizations, so we know the company has what it takes to bring the game to the West.

Atlus to the resue?

Atlus to the rescue?

In an interview around September last year, Toshihiro Nagoshi mentioned that their team simply didn’t have the manpower available to work on both localizing Yakuza 5 and developing Yakuza Ishin. Since then the takeover of Index Corporation by Sega-Sammy has been completed, and it’s worth noting that Nagoshi also joined the board of directors of the newly acquired company.

But before we go theorizing about what this news would mean for Yakuza 5 and other yet-to-be-localized Sega games, let’s remember that EGM’s rumor section is basically the only source for the news we have right now, so we shouldn’t get our hopes up just yet! That said, if this rumor does turn out to be true, there are certainly some very interesting times ahead!

Thanks to our friends at Segabits for the news.

Update: According to a NeoGAF post from Jason Schreier of Kotaku, Atlus USA is unaware of any plans for them to localize Yakuza 5.

It is worth noting that EGM, under the Q-Mann name, has trafficked in rumors that have later been debunked, among them a port of Virtua Cop to the Wii.

Project Diva F 2nd Delayed

Project Diva F 2nd Delayed in Japan

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Sega has revealed that Project Diva F 2nd is getting a small delay. The game will now be released on March 27th instead of March 6th in Japan. According to Sega, the delay is needed to further improve the quality of the game. The PS Vita card version will cost 7,000 yen (around $68 or €50) while the PSN digital download version will cost 6,286 yen (around $61 or €46).

Although there’s been no word on a release of the game outside of Japan, Sega seems satisfied with sales of the original Project Diva F in the West and will release Project Diva f for the PS Vita on PSN this March. Together with the news of the delay, Sega also released the full game PV of DECORATOR, the game’s opening theme song. You can see the video here:

初音ミクがオリジナル曲を歌ってくれました「DECORATOR」【Project DIVA F 2nd】

Yakuza Ishin TV Spot

Yakuza Ishin TV Spots

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With the Japanese launch of the PS4 less than a month away, Sega has started airing two TV spots in Japan to promote the game, showcasing the story and gameplay. You can watch them below.

『龍が如く 維新！』TVCMゲーム篇

『龍が如く 維新！』TVCMストーリー篇

Yakuza Ishin will be released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 in Japan on February 22. At the moment there’s no word on the game being localized into English, but it’s good to see fans haven’t given up on asking for an English version of the game on Youtube and elsewhere!

Valkyria Chronicles Campaign Video Image

Video: Help bring Valkyria Chronicles to PC!

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You might have seen our earlier request to sign the petition requesting Sega to release more PC games. I ended up making a small video to promote Valkyria Chronicles in particular. I’m sure many of you out there remember how the fans and Sega worked together to help the game make a surprise comeback after initially disappointing sales. Given the state of the franchise in the West now, a localization for VC3 might turn out to be something that we can achieve by returning to the series’ roots. While the PC campaign isn’t directly related to our cause, if the original game were to find a new audience on a different platform, it might open the way for VC3 to be localized after all.

By giving the original Valkyria Chronicles another chance on a different platform, one that doesn’t require scaling down aspects of the game and where the turn-based strategy genre already has an audience, we might very well be able to revive the franchise in the West. Valkyria Chronicles isn’t part of the three primary games requested by the petition because its CANVAS graphics engine may not be easy to port to PC. But if the VC fans can demonstrate to Sega that the demand is there, we might be able to make a difference once again. Of course, we shouldn’t forget the greater goal of the petition is to see more Sega games in general, but there’s no harm done in rallying the Gallian Militia for the cause! So we hope you all sign the petition and let Sega know we want to see Squad 7 move out once again. With all that said, here’s the video in question:

Help bring Valkyria Chronicles to PC! #SegaPCPorts

The link to the petition can be found here.

Sony Announces Playstation Now Streaming Game Service

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Sony has unveiled their new streaming game service called Playstation Now at CES 2014, which will allow gamers to stream PSOne, PS2, and PS3 games to the PS4, PS3 and later PS Vita. However, it also intends to expand the service to non-Playstation devices, including their BRAVIA TV’s, tablets and smartphones. This is an excellent opportunity for the mainline Yakuza entries and the first Valkyria Chronicles among other games to appear on the service, which sadly are currently unavailable as digital download on PSN. The main advantage of a streaming service is that the games would not have to be ported to an entirely different platform. They simply run on Sony’s server and the video output is streamed back to your device, while your controller input is sent to the server. The challenge Sony will face with their service is to ensure a high video quality while keeping the latency low (sending data to and from the server takes time and also depends on the speed of your Internet connection). The service will be entering beta testing this month, with a public release planned later this year in the US.

For that matter a game like Valkyria Chronicles would probably be an ideal choice to showcase this technology: the gameplay would hardly suffer from a bit of latency and the game’s art style isn’t as complex as those found in games aiming for more realism, making it easier to compress and stream over the Internet. But given how Sony intends to release The Last of Us for the service, the Yakuza games should have no problem running on the service either.

Is anyone interested in this service, and would you like to see Sega games released on it? Feel free to let us know in the comments!

Source: PlayStation Now Streaming Game Service Coming this Summer

Relic Entertainment Working on Phantasy Star Online 2?

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Dualshockers pointed out a rather interesting job opportunity from Relic Entertainment, the studio Sega acquired earlier this year:

http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/12/…ne-2-incoming/

The job opportunity mentions they’re looking for someone to “ramp up and perform due diligence on an existing live MMO project in development in Japan, embedded with the live team”. The logical conclusion would be that the existing live MMO project is in fact PSO2. So far, Sega have always maintained that the game will be localized, and Relic obviously has plenty of experience developing for PC. It might also explain the delay given how Relic wasn’t part of Sega until earlier this year and they first had to finish work on Company of Heroes 2. So while it isn’t much, let’s hope this means the game may yet see a western release.

Meanwhile, Siliconera reports that Phantasy Star Online 2 will get an English release in South East Asia in 2014 through a partnership between Sega and Asiasoft.