According to the game's official Facebook Page, Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 will not be making its way out West due to what the developers see as a potential backlash towards the game due to complaints of sexism and treatment of women and female characters in the gaming industry.
UPDATE: Koei Tecmo has made an official statement, which we cover here along with some of the reactions of other press outlets to the events of the last week.
On the Facebook Page, a fan asked if there were any plans to bring Dead or Alive to the US or the EU, to which the Official Page responded:
"We do not bring DOAX3 to the west and won't have any plan change in the future. Thank you for asking"
As fans continued to press for more explanation for why they wouldn't be bringing the game to the West, the developer dropped the real reason why:
Do you know many issues happening in video game industry with regard to how to treat female in video game industry? We do not want to talk those things here. But certainly we have gone through in last year or two to come to our decision. Thank you.
In the past, Team Ninja had discussed bringing the game over to the West if there was a demand for it, and up until now it was looking like that was going to happen. According to GamesRadar, the game was even originally set to release with more male characters if it came West to North America, allowing players to play as a male other than Zack for the first time in Dead or Alive Xtreme history.
Dead or Alive Xtreme 3, which is the third installment of the beach volleyball spin-off of the popular Dead or Alive fighting series, is currently set to arrive on Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita on February 25, 2016. For players that would still like to play the game, the Asian version can be ordered, and includes english menus and subtitles without a region lock. A recent trailer shows some of the game's other game modes and characters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie9GOInqDjs TechRaptor has reached out to both Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja for comment and Clarification on the comments made on the Facebook Page. We'll update this post when we find out more information.
Update: While we haven't heard back directly from Koei Tecmo as of yet, Koei Tecmo Europe sent out a tweet in regards to getting the game in the West for people interested in purchasing it, much like we said above:
https://twitter.com/koeitecmoeurope/status/669156347213127681 It would also seem that there are other devs willing to work with Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo as well, offering up money to license the rights to Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 in order to publish the game in the West so that fans can get the game without having to import:
https://twitter.com/HuniePotDev/status/669411212241825792
Quick Take
I've never been a hardcore Dead or Alive fan, but I've always found the games to be fun to play with friends, and still do so with friends that I've been playing the games with since high school. Seeing a developer have to feel the need to stop an export of a game because they feel there will be a backlash towards their game isn't a step in the right direction for the industry, and I'm sure we'll see gamers worldwide reaching out in support of Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja, because there's a pretty wide and diverse following for Dead or Alive.
