Lets Talk Shenmue HD

(Chapter 1 | General Series Discussion)

Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Valascaziel » Fri Dec 23, 2016 11:01 am

I've started a mess. Here's a question to get it back going--

If it is going to be revealed, what is the ideal time? E3?
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby SMDzero » Fri Dec 23, 2016 11:15 am

Valascaziel wrote: I've started a mess. Here's a question to get it back going--

If it is going to be revealed, what is the ideal time? E3?



Shenmue HD will never be released as long as Sega owns the IP.


You have to understand.... Sega is a different company now than it was in 2001.

Sega today is crap... Sega is a small inconsequential and irrelevant company that makes nothing more than pachinko games and a few mediocre Sonics titles that really belong on mobile free-to-play.


Hopefully Shenmue 3 is a huge success and Sega sells off the Shenmue IP to a company with actual talent and resources to make the remasters.
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Let's Get Sweaty » Fri Dec 23, 2016 11:34 am

Don't worry, I've adapted Peter's method from the pre-PSX Twitch stream to ensure a Shenmue HD announcement at the next major event is a mathematical certainty:

Image

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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Centrale » Fri Dec 23, 2016 11:51 am

Spaghetti wrote:
Centrale wrote:You seem a little wound up about trying to prove your own interpretation as "right" whereas I'm simply demonstrating that both opinions are a matter of interpretation and speculation and so, whether or not you're arguing with me or someone else, you can expect the issue of middleware to continue to be a matter of discussion.

No, I just think you're being willfully obtuse in the face of direct statements from SEGA staff that are clearly talking about the licenced brands in the game.

But if you want to stick with a single unsubstantiated forum post as your bastion of information, go right ahead. I can't really stop you for reveling in, frankly, ignorance.


And happy holidays to you as well.
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby chris1986 » Sat Dec 24, 2016 12:18 pm

What a wonderful Christmas present it would've been to play a shenmue remaster this Christmas. The nostalgia of it would have been like no other...hopefully next year.

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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Peter » Sat Dec 24, 2016 1:52 pm

Shenmue HD remasters are solely dependent on Sony, since they have an element of stake. Sega will not be funding or developing it. They will just negotiate a contract for profits from retail sales, and give permission to use the licence. That's it.

It will be Sony who need to ask the question, then once given a yes, have to work out how much sales they can potentially get, use that information it work out a budget, and work with developers to see if it can be done. In game products and any original engine issues are not big issues at all. There are 2 potential developers which could be possibly working on it right now, but we won't know for sure until it's announced.


That isn't me hypothizing by the way. Imagine the text above wasn't typed by me.

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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby celsowm » Sat Dec 24, 2016 2:09 pm

Peter wrote: There are 2 potential developers which could be possibly working on it right now, but we won't know for sure until it's announced..


BlitWorks and....?
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Anonymous81 » Sat Dec 24, 2016 5:50 pm

Is it messed up that if true, I'd actually be relieved for it to be someone other than Sega developing the remasters? :( Acknowledging that to myself just made me sad lol. :(
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Kiske » Sat Dec 24, 2016 7:53 pm

Peter wrote: Shenmue HD remasters are solely dependent on Sony, since they have an element of stake. Sega will not be funding or developing it. They will just negotiate a contract for profits from retail sales, and give permission to use the licence. That's it.

It will be Sony who need to ask the question, then once given a yes, have to work out how much sales they can potentially get, use that information it work out a budget, and work with developers to see if it can be done. In game products and any original engine issues are not big issues at all. There are 2 potential developers which could be possibly working on it right now, but we won't know for sure until it's announced.


That isn't me hypothizing by the way. Imagine the text above wasn't typed by me.


Are you saying we should pester Sony and not Sega each 3rd of the Month?

Damn! :lol:

Anyway Peter, thank you! I especially like your last phrase! :-k
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Ziming » Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:33 pm

celsowm wrote:BlitWorks and....?


Bluepoint Games!

I wish!
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Karimov » Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:39 pm

I dont think shenmue hd is gonna happen. Sega just doesnt do old ip's. Streets of rage 4. Shenmue hd. Etcetera. I hate to say it but sega is an unreliable company
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Peter » Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:47 pm

Ziming wrote:
celsowm wrote:BlitWorks and....?


Bluepoint Games!

I wish!


Blitworks isnt a name that waas mentioned, but the 2 possibilities are Bluepoint as well as M2 (IF Sega wish to take the lead on it, which is a small, but not a complete impossibility)

Again, not my own opinion so read my post as if its not me talking; another thing people need to keep in mind is that with this being a Dreamcast game (thus being windows based), the reverse engineering is very easy, when compared to if it was released on the Saturn as previously intended. Also, always keep in mind about the Crazy Taxi remake when you come to the whole topic of in game licencing. It's an absolute non issue.

_______________________

I see some people have their doubts and ask why I say 100% chance. So, Id say to not ask you to put your mind into the aspect of a multi billion quid company getting this game into production. I will say that, you go into a bookies to bet on a horse. You want to make money on that horse. So you look at the form. You see which horse is making the punters money, and look at past form. Shenmue 3 has 70,000 reasons to make investors of any shape or form think, yea, this is worth a punt. We can at the very least get our stake back, never mind make a profit, even a big win at that!

That's the facts Sony have in front of them. Yes Shenmue didn't sell well, yes it's a niche title, yes it's boring and marmite. But it won last year. It will win when you guys see the trailer. Fuck me I CANNOT emphasise thay enough, and my disappointment from the stream last month wasn't because we were given incorrect information, it's because I want everyone to see it so badly. It's the BIGGEST contrast to what we are experiencing right now, in the drip fed updates.

Shenmue will be a serious winner. I am hedging my bets to be safe like Sony did last year, but there's the possibility there from what I've seen, of another Witcher 3 situation. Yes I just said that. Hold me to the mark whenever this game comes out.

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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Himuro » Sat Dec 24, 2016 10:06 pm

I think I might be the person on neogaf Spaghetti is talking about. I heard that it was licenses issue through someone at Sega and I posted that on gaf. I probably (incorrectly) assumed that the licenses they were talking about were related to the engine and stuff because the licensed products could easily be replaced as the non-Japanese versions of I had showed. What the Sega rep told me supported this as well.

I'm prettyyyyy sure Spags is talking about me. All I can say is that is what I was told at the time. The idea was that Shenmue HD was done but they couldn't release it due to licenses (particularly the engine) being too expensive, and considering the other Dreamcast HD games bombed, Sega didn't find it worth pursuing. This is what I was told by a Sega rep and it's also what I told people on neogaf. I used to be told a lot of things that were happening in the industry due to my contacts gained from neogaf and considering my place as a big Shenmue fan on the board I was given that information.

If it seemed like a lie or trying to string fans along I apologize, it wasn't my intention.
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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby Ziming » Sun Dec 25, 2016 4:29 am

Shenmue was probably never done or even near a finished state. The Shenmue HD rumor likely originally came from Blit Software doing a plain basic port of game on the Xbox 360. As everyone now knows they did the Jet Set Radio HD port. I learned this back in 2012 from a journalist named Jose who lives in Spain. (Blit Software is located in that same country) Some dojo members might remember him as he went by the username "el clown" and interviewed Yu Suzuki at the Toulouse Game Show in Nov, 2011. Here is that interview:

phpBB [video]


So fast forward 6 months later (May, 2012) I get a email from Jose (el clown) with some inside information about what's going on with Shenmue.

Image

At the time of this email I had no idea who exactly this small studio porting JSR was, as I only came to find out after the release of JSR that it was Blit Software. When I read this email it made absolute perfect sense to me. I recall being very excited when Sega brand manager Ben Harborne strongly suggesting Shenmue/Skies of Arcadia a few months prior. (March, 2012)

phpBB [video]


My last contact with Jose was in 2014 at Gamelab 2014 where Yu Suzuki was given some award. Here's part of a message he wrote to me:

el_clown wrote:On a side note, I met today one of the funding members of Blit (not ElSemi, the other guy), he was in direct contact with SEGA and also oversaw JSR and the dreamcast emulator that runs Space Channel 5 and more on XBL and PSN. He told me about the Shenmue port, he said it was very poor and that SEGA needed to expend some molaah to make it work properly and that there was simply NO WAY they were gonna shell that out. He told me that after Aliens Colonial Marines, SEGA WEST is almost bankrupt and that SEGA JAPAN has no faith in western companies handling SEGA games effectively.


To summarize it all came down to SEGA not wanting to invest money to do a proper HD remaster for both games. I did message that guy from NeoGAF who revealed the licensing stuff and he repeated what Jose already told me. The Blit software interview from last year did say they emulated a few games including Shenmue in order to showcase them to SEGA.

Blit Software interview from last year:
http://www.gamespek.com/2015/07/14/entr ... entemente/

So, back in the day Sega announced the return of the mythical Sonic CD for consoles and PC and we discovered that behind the excellent conversion was a totally unknown company. How was Blitworks born, and what’s their objective in the videogames industry?

As you can imagine, you don’t end up working with Sega in a day; it was the conclusion to a long process that curiously enough started just as a hobby. Miguel Ángel Horna (also known as ElSemi) had a long experience with emulators, and one day he realized he had emulators for System 16, System 32, Mega Drive (Genesis) and Dreamcast. Then we thought it would be a good idea to showcase Sonic CD, Jet Set Radio and Shenmue working on the emulators to Sega, with the prospect of a commercial release for the consoles of that time. They showed interest in Sonic CD and Jet Set Radio, but they started to ask for things that were hard to implement without access to the original source code, like 16:9 rendering and trophy support. At one point both Sega and and us agreed it would be better to start from source code and develop a proper port. So they got us in touch with Christian Whitehead, (who was rewriting Sonic CD from scratch) and looked in their files in order to find almost all Jet Set Radio’s source code. Finally they gave us the green light and everything started to move more swiftly. Because of logistics we decided to work with an already established company, (Blit Software), property of two of our partners. Once we were done with our first assignment, we finally were able to establish BlitWorks as an independent company. And since then, assignments haven’t stopped coming and the company has expanded to our current 20 employees.


We also know people keep asking for classic and other well received games to be ported for PC and new consoles. What games are demanded the most? Would you like to work on a certain title?

Hahaha, clearly Shenmue, people don’t stop asking us about Shenmue!. The truth is that this game needs to be approached with a lot of respect, it’s a big game, and there is a lot of work to do in order to create a great port. Even more, it’s hard to know how much it would cost exactly, what creates a complicated problem in our side: the estimated budget. If you ask for a high quantity, you risk losing the project because it’s too risky in terms of money, but if you ask for a small quantity in order to secure the project, you can exhaust the budget mid-port, and having to finish it quickly.

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Re: Lets Talk Shenmue HD

Postby shredingskin » Sun Dec 25, 2016 4:47 am

Yes, I think I saw those last paragraphs before.
Those guys did a great jsr port, it would be cool if they could do Shenmue HD.

Still, not much it's there to make in those conversations if they actually licensed middleware or not since they never got the source projects for Shenmue (something that apparently YS has !!!).
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