Currently it seems ta be in really good shape worldwide following 0's release plus all thats followed! However thats now an not a 4~ years ago! Thinking back towards the dawn of the current gen there was a decent amount of talk about how bringing Ishin over woulda been a no-brainer success early in the PS4's life. Thoughts were how it'd have lil competition an also how it'd safely bring new players into the series. After all it wasn't a sequel an the thinking was that makes it a good entry point (sound familiar?). Plus it was the first Yakuza to hit a new generation system! Not exactly a bad arguement right?
Instead it got snubbed! As prior to the super lttp localization of 5 was released, 0 and (by accident?) Kiwami got announced for the west! I'm not thinking Sega was playing some long game in knowing the next upcoming mainline game would be what really sells people on the series due to it being a prequel. Nor will I say they fluked into success but there was prolly some luck involved, along with years an years of fan shilling! Either way, 0 ended up doing what a buncha people thought/hoped Ishin would do!
But if Ishin had gotten a chance would it have made good on those hopes? Does anyone who was on that bandwagon feel the series would be going as strong or even stronger right now if it had made it overseas late 2014 / early~mid 2015? I don't think it woulda sparked as much buzz as 0 did. Its entirely possible the game woulda sold/reviewed poorly/lukewarmly like previous games had, and later on 0 lights a fire in peoples butts to get into Yakuza anyhow. Thats still a net gain overall since it means one extra game got localized! But I wanna say holding back an re-debuting the series with a prequel to the mainline games was prolly the right call in the end.
Instead it got snubbed! As prior to the super lttp localization of 5 was released, 0 and (by accident?) Kiwami got announced for the west! I'm not thinking Sega was playing some long game in knowing the next upcoming mainline game would be what really sells people on the series due to it being a prequel. Nor will I say they fluked into success but there was prolly some luck involved, along with years an years of fan shilling! Either way, 0 ended up doing what a buncha people thought/hoped Ishin would do!
But if Ishin had gotten a chance would it have made good on those hopes? Does anyone who was on that bandwagon feel the series would be going as strong or even stronger right now if it had made it overseas late 2014 / early~mid 2015? I don't think it woulda sparked as much buzz as 0 did. Its entirely possible the game woulda sold/reviewed poorly/lukewarmly like previous games had, and later on 0 lights a fire in peoples butts to get into Yakuza anyhow. Thats still a net gain overall since it means one extra game got localized! But I wanna say holding back an re-debuting the series with a prequel to the mainline games was prolly the right call in the end.