- Joined
- Aug 22, 2018
The first Yakuza game isn’t really the best example, as although it did have an English dub, it was arguably worse than the one found in the first two Shenmue games. It also didn’t help that many people saw the game as a knock-off Japanese GTA at the time of its release either.Yakuza 0 was the big breakthrough and IIIRC it definitely didn't feature an English dub. The first game did, however. In fact, they hired known Hollywood actors, including Luke Skywalker himself! It flopped. A good game is the priority, imo. I'd take text if it meant a better game. I remember the excitement I had for Yakuza and then the crushing disappointment when I realized I was getting into another big budget Shenmue-esque flop. Glad I was wrong, but the dub certainly didn't help anything.
Yakuza 0 wasn’t radically different from the earlier games though, which, if anything, goes to show how long it took for the reputation of the series to grow in the West. I dare say that it being numbered 0 also helped a lot with sales, as it provided new players with a viable entry point into the series without having to replay the older titles first to understand what was going on.
That Sega has reverted to adding English dubs into the games (Judgement and Yakuza 7) suggests that they too know that not having an English dub was costing them sales and that Western sales of Y7 exceeded their expectations suggests that the English dub had a far greater impact on sales than they were expecting.
Sadly we don’t have the exact figures, but as far as I can tell, Judgement and Y7 are responsible for more than 20% of the series’ total sales despite there being nearly twenty Yakuza games in total (including spin offs now). Yakuza 0 (a game that didn’t carry the burden of being a true numbered entry) probably accounts for another 10%.