BluePoint Games at work on a "Classic" remake.

[punkmanced]

If this shit turns out to be Parappa the Rapper, Ryo's pet kitten dies.

...Who am I kidding... dude left for China back in '86. It's already dead.

[khmlight3]

Its probably not Demon Souls it come Spyro or a Legend of Dragoon remake!

[Kiske]

If this shit turns out to be Parappa the Rapper, Ryo's pet kitten dies.

...Who am I kidding... dude left for China back in '86. It's already dead.

They kinda already did a remaster for the 20th anniversary of Parappa.

------

With the Wayback info from Kiske, that's kind of the nail in the coffin for me. I'm not particularly worried, though. SEGA's stated intent is to do a remaster right, and I think they'll follow through on that no matter who gets it. For Blitworks it's certainly a passion project and we can expect them to treat the game right.

Even internally at SEGA or at the porthouse who did Valkyria Chronicles and Bayonetta, I think there will be people who are completely passionate about the games. Jurgen Post said it himself, there are people within SEGA who want it to happen, and want it to happen right. We're sufficiently removed from the release of the original games that the people who played them may have joined the industry, and moved far enough up the corporate ladder to put some real traction into making a definitive remaster of Shenmue and Shenmue II.

It's just a matter of waiting a little bit longer, hopefully.

[Kiske]

Even internally at SEGA or at the porthouse who did Valkyria Chronicles and Bayonetta, I think there will be people who are completely passionate about the games. Jurgen Post said it himself, there are people within SEGA who want it to happen, and want it to happen right. We're sufficiently removed from the release of the original games that the people who played them may have joined the industry, and moved far enough up the corporate ladder to put some real traction into making a definitive remaster of Shenmue and Shenmue II.

It's just a matter of waiting a little bit longer, hopefully.

I do agree.

I just realized with the BluePoint rumor, how much the name of the Studio "doing the job" could potentially help the sales of the remasters/remakes (if they really come ) just thanks to the Studio reputation.

[FlagshipFighter]

Looking at Blitworks portfolio thoroughly, they've worked on many high profile games too. Because I'd be just over the moon to get the remasters in any shape or form (with or without any features etc) i'd be happy! But one of the only things I'd say is that it would benefit from is a physical release (that may of the games in their portfolio lack). I'd probably get both straight away (I'm a fan of digital especially with games that I often return to such as fighting games) but judging from the kickstarter feedback during the campaign I feel that many of the people leaned heavily towards physical (and there are definitely those like Adam Koralik who only buy physical releases).

So yeah + physical games have awesome cases these days, the current slew of games I have preordered atm is pretty much for this reason alone:


*drools*

But digital is important too, especially if we see a 'shadow-drop' style announcement with the game releasing on E3, the first place many would go to is PSN/XBL/Steam (not to mention, I dunno about PSN/Steam as much but XBL credit is always stupidly cheap in the UK, you can often buy £25 xbox money for £19 from wuaki deals)

Anyways... 47 days approx. till E3! SEGA's on a roll with releasing/teasing ports atm (bayo/wonderboy3 looks amazing, and I like how with the latter you can transition from old and new, also vanquish!)

I love you Joel Tess!

[Kiske]

I just can't imagine remasters of Shenmue without a physical version.

I would build a "riverstone" boxset by myself if there was no physical release.

[FlagshipFighter]

I just can't imagine remasters of Shenmue without a physical version.

I would build a "riverstone" boxset by myself if there was no physical release.

But what would be in them??? :p

As far as I know, Sony is a bit laxed when it comes to making physical copies on PS4 (the production of units can eb really low, as seen with limited run games) so it shouldn't be difficult there. Not sure how things will operate on Xbox/PC for physical distribution, hopefully Deep Silver can lend a hand as they have been with distributing all of sega's latest and greatest.

(on the subject of greatest, I really want to look forward to valkyria revolution and continue to support that series, but as much as I want to like it, it's not making any positive impression on me at all. Tbf it looks really bad for the most part but I'll give it the benefit of doubt. Going to wait for reviews on that one and if it bombs then perhaps wait for major price drop)

[FlagshipFighter]

But one of the only things I'd say is that it would benefit from is a physical release (that may of the games in their portfolio lack).

That's down to the publisher rather than Blitworks themselves. With Shenmue HD it would be Sega's decision to release physically or not, regardless of who they get to make it.

[FlagshipFighter]

But one of the only things I'd say is that it would benefit from is a physical release (that may of the games in their portfolio lack).

That's down to the publisher rather than Blitworks themselves. With Shenmue HD it would be Sega's decision to release physically or not, regardless of who they get to make it.

Agreed! And as mentioned prior, they're in a position now where they can negotiate/collaborate with other distributors/publishers (like deep silver) if they're having difficulty doing it themselves (especially if this project is coming from SEGA Europe rather than SEGA/Atlus USA) so I do hope they decide to go for a physical release. We haven't seen them do that for a lot of their remasters (yet) but they did do that with Valkyria Chronicles (which was cool).

[FlagshipFighter]

Kinda unrelated but it's nice to see another Shenmue Tweet from Sega. This time it's not even from Sega Europe's account, just the straight up Sega account:

[FlagshipFighter]

In regards to Metal Gear Solid HD Collection possibly not being as bug-free (had to chuckle at your pun, by the way ) as would be preferred, can you name a single issue you encountered that soured the experience from a technical perspective?

Indeed not one, that's why I said I'd take their works over the others. They listened to us and kept fixing their Collection, they cared about their work.

P.S.: that pun is not mine ( though I wish it was), they used it back in the day at thesnakesoup.

May Joel be with us

[Spaghetti]

Kinda unrelated but it's nice to see another Shenmue Tweet from Sega. This time it's not even from Sega Europe's account, just the straight up Sega account:

Yeah. It probably doesn't mean anything, but it's been so nice in recent years for SEGA to openly talk about Shenmue again. I'm sure some of us remember the raw early years post-Shenmue II when "no comment" was as good as we'd get.

[FlagshipFighter]

Agreed with both of you, thank goodness it's no longer taboo to talk about shenmue! I still remember that SEGA CEO (from around 2007) and how blunt/dismissive he was of the franchise (can't say I blame him from his perspective, but it was always crushing/disheartening) so glad things have flipped.

Also, worth mentioning that apparently those jackets have almost sold out... again (and their prepping new shipment) nice to see it doing so well (I wonder what SEGA's cut is, 9%ish per jacket sale perhaps? I know Disney related products are 14%ish because they have one of the highest 'slices of the pie' when it comes to IP holders/licensing distributors).

And with the fiscal quarter ending Friday, I'm interested to know how SEGA has done since January as it seems like it's been a great year for them so far and will continue to be at least until early next year. I know last quarter Football Manager and Yakuza 6 did really well for them especially regarding physical sales.

[Let's Get Sweaty]

Kinda unrelated but it's nice to see another Shenmue Tweet from Sega. This time it's not even from Sega Europe's account, just the straight up Sega account

It's been pretty standard for that account to promote their Insert Coin merch, including the previous Shenmue jacket and T-shirts.

[FlagshipFighter]

With the Wayback info from Kiske, that's kind of the nail in the coffin for me. I'm not particularly worried, though. SEGA's stated intent is to do a remaster right, and I think they'll follow through on that no matter who gets it. For Blitworks it's certainly a passion project and we can expect them to treat the game right.

I wouldn't want Blitworks to do the ports, at least they wouldn't be my first choice and I'm surprised by the enthusiasm over them. I've complained about Blitworks in the past, and I'll restate some of those reasons again. If Blitworks does it, you're not getting the quality you deserve. You'll get an emulated game with the same limitations as the original and some new menus randomly injected into the game that don't match the original. Both of the ports they did for Sega were mediocre bare minimum jobs.

Let's start with their first port, Sonic CD. Originally, Sega commissioned them for an XBOX 360 and PS4 port of Sonic CD. They emulated the Sega CD and emulated it poorly. It ran at 30fps even though the original game was 60. This build was posted onto Xbox 360 PartnerNet back in December of 2010 and you can find details (and I think there was even a video of it at one point) elsewhere. That version was rejected by SEGA and instead they had Blitworks scrap it and port Christian Whitehead's mobile remake instead. His engine is extremely easy to port, essentially they barely had to do any work other than hooking it up to the console API's.

Their second SEGA "port" was not a port either. Jet Set Radio is a hybrid emulator where they just emulate the original game and inject changes into the emulation where they were needed. They've got their own widescreen hack in there, which is slightly more advanced than the community built hacks for the Dreamcast version and they inject new menus into the emulated game to handle native stuff. Their menu system is rather primitive compared to the 'native' ones in the game, just featuring basic 2D artwork for navigation purposes. Their port also suffered from the exact same framerate issues that the Dreamcast original had, in the initial releases Bantham street had several areas where you'd see slowdown just like in the original game. These issues were eventually corrected in a later patch, and they delayed the Vita version because of performance problems and by the time the game launched on Vita it ran better than the original unpatched PS3 release.

Blit might be capable of doing a better job than they did with their previous games, but their current work is not a good indication that they would be great for "ports" of Shenmue. I think whoever ends up doing the ports needs to take the approach that was taken with Shenmue 2x, and by that I mean an actual port instead of emulation. There are a bunch of nice little improvements that they can easily make (use the original high quality voices, high quality music, full quality models) if they're doing an actual port which would not be easy to do if they're emulating the originals.

However, I don't think Sega gave them access to source code for either game. They clearly have capable people working for them, (they wrote Unsharper after all) but to think they'd be a good fit solely from their previous ports does not inspire confidence in my opinion. I think they'd probably do fine if they had access to the original code, assets, and Sega gave them the right requirements when it comes to improvements they could make that wouldn't damage the original experience.