The upcoming Yakuza 4 won’t be out until early next year, but Sega has already revealed that they’re working on a new Yakuza game, which would make it the sixth, no, sorry, the seventh in the series. No other details were revealed, but don’t expect it to be out until at least 2012, and that’s in Japan.

Fans of the Yakuza series will know that it took some time before SEGA finally decided to release a North American version of their hugely popular Yakuza 2. Well, if recent rumors are to be believed, we may not be subject to such a tedious wait with Yakuza 3.

Rumors come to us from 1UP who says that an anonymous source close to the project told them that “Yakuza 3 is currently being localized for release in the U.S. and European markets”.

As with any rumor, take this with a grain of salt, at least until we hear and official announcement from SEGA, that is.