Yakuza 3 Loses Hostess Clubs in the US & EU

Sega have confirmed, that the eagerly awaited Yakuza 3, has been trimmed down for it’s European release. A Sega representative explained that these edits, were necessary and would still maintain the flow of story and gameplay. We must admit that this did seem surprising to us, as it actually takes the development team MORE work to edit certain elements out of such a game, than to leave them in for launch.

For example, lets say you wanted to close off a particular shop on the street. Designers, coders, artists and animators, would have to go over the entire area of that particular shop, editing any door animations or area triggers. In some cases, certain edits could cause there to be completely new areas created, to keep the story or path progression, running smoothly.

While we’re OK with certain content cuts (Japanese Quizzes), we still can’t get over the cancellation of the hostess clubs. Yes…hostess clubs will no longer appear in the the US & EU version of Yakuza 3! Just when we thought developers were getting the hang of their adult gamer market, they pull off something like this.

While Sega dropped the hostess club bombshell, they also pointed out that karaoke bars and strip clubs, will still be in the US & EU game. Maybe the success of the strip clubs in GTA 4, prevented this, but we still feel the deletion of the hostess clubs, will cause outrage with many patient European gamers.

While we too, are upset with the deletion of hostess club content, we still can’t imagine that Sega would take such a risk. After all, Sega published the sexy Bayonetta, which is probably one of the raunchiest AAA console titles (that and Rumble Roses) we’ve ever played.

Bayonetta has proven that Sega aren’t shy with adult content in games. So we’re starting to believe, that the deletion of hostess clubs in Yakuza 3, is due to the $ signs rolling in Sega’s marketing departments, staff. Why? Well, people will still pre order Yakuza 3 for it’s awesome and devilish street fights, mini games and strip clubs, right? Now, lets say three months down the line, Sega suddenly release ‘The Hostess Club Pack’ on PSN for a few bucks…how much do you think Sega will make from that?

The truth is…we’d be adding it to our PSN download list, as well.