PS4/Sony exclusive (No Sega involvement) speculation

[Domosuke]

So I'm an obscure gamer. I usually don't buy any new games, the last two new games I played were GTA 5 and Thief 4 and you can see there is a pattern, as to how being a big Shenmue fan, I like those other franchises.

And I don't pay attention to E3. I think it's a bunch of bullshit and usually the best and upcoming games and gaming ideals are ones that aren't featured there. So I can't believe I just now got the memo of Shenmue 3, finally being in post production.

But with every positive, there is a negative. I do not like how they are abusing the kickstarter system with this. Is it against the rules, no, but it's still being abusive. Either way, I'm not donating any money, I will instead by full retail price of the completed game on opening week so they get their profits worth.

Another thing, this is a Sony console exclusive, and Sega and Microsoft has no production in this. So that is kinda a bummer as Shenmue 3 was supposed to be released on the xbox, or whatever carbon copy version of the xbox, which presently is the Xbox One. But, it is what it is.

However, I'm sure Shenmue 3 will feature these changes.

As already seen in the trailer, characters that were owned by Sega will now be redesigned to avoid copyright, as Ryo will be less and less designed after Akira from VF. Any returning characters will also probably be tweaked greatly.
DLC or other content advertising Sony. Billboards featuring current and past Sony games.
No toys
No capsule machines
Anything to do with sega will be removed.
No sega soundtracks available in corner stores
No arcade with classic sega games.
An "M" rating possibly as ESRB doesn't play anymore nowadays.
Digital Download (No Compact version even though they say it will have a physical version, I'm sure it will only be released by digital download on the console)
No HD or rereleasing of previous versions on PSN as those games are still owned by Sega.

Thoughts?

[Three Blades]

How is it an abuse of Kickstarter? If anything, this is how the Kickstarter should be used!

As for the character designs, don't worry! It has nothing to do with copyrights. Sega gave YsNet the full rights to use the Shenmue license! And, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they also said that they'd be able to use the capsule toys and arcade games as well (can't remember where I saw that though).
No, the wonky design is simply due to the fact that they had to throw a video together quickly to show at E3; the game isn't even being made yet (or, if it is, they just started working on it). Ryo will look like Ryo when they're done.

[PILMAN]

First of all , there are valid reasons why sega cannot appear. I think you are speculating that somehow likeness of characters cannot be used when that clearly isn't the case at all. For sega intellectual property, it makes sense that capsule toys depicting sega characters likely wouldn't show up without some form of license granted however that doesn't mean capsule toys won't show up. The issue would be the arcade if it's included because sega still owns the rights to many of those games but many other games could still show up such as the boxing game, darts, arm wrestling, wrestling, etc.

As for Xbox one, I remember when shenmue 2 was announced for Xbox originally, there was a lot of promise that it would be heavily advertised it and the official Xbox magazine basically took a big crap on shenmue with its reviews mocking the sound actors and giving it a mediocre review. There was practically no advertisement for the game, can you blame Yu Suzuki why he chose the ps4? Much of it is because Sony is offering funding for the advertising and PC release makes sense using the unreal 4 engine.

You have the choice to fund or not fund, ultimately the only ones suffering are the fans if people say they do not want to finance and now we have the opportunity. I am going for quality not quantity and am happy to have put down money but it is not your obligation.

[killthesagabeforeitkillsu]

Thoughts?

I have never seen so much misinformation condensed.

[Jibby]

The idea that Kickstarter is just for indie games is just fucking ridiculous. Kickstarter is for projects that have tried and failed to secure funding. A project is put up on there, and if there is enough demand from people, and they're willing to put up money out of their own pockets to see it come to fruition, then it goes ahead. That isn't abuse, it's using it for it's intended purpose.

However...

One thing that pisses me off is when massively funded projects don't give back to the community. I mean, c'mon, show some love and pledge to another project you like. Even if it's just a couple of quid, don't be a tight-fisted twat.

As for the changes:

- Ryo was never like Akira. Spiked hair, yes. Scar, yes. Everything else? No. The original Akira's Quest or whatever was an entirely new design for Akira, one that was never trademarked or copyrighted, it was merely conceptual. The "different Ryo" look is purely down to poor modelling.

- Yu Suzuki has been granted the Shenmue license. Any other trademarked looks will be included.

- Billboards in Guilin? Doubt that pal.

- No toys or capsule machines? The people who are paying to have their face slapped on a toy will surely be disappointed with that...

- I personally never liked that "Everything is SEGA!" thing. It was nice at first, don't get me wrong, but it broke immersion slightly. And as far as Shenmue canon goes, SEGA are a Japanese arcade/toy/building company. Again, I doubt we'd see it in Guilin anyway. "Realistically speaking", that is.

- SEGA soundtracks were only available at the Tomato Convenience Store, as far as I remember. Even then you had to win them in a raffle. On top of this, the fact that you had to actually pause the damn game to listen to them (unless they were on a jukebox in a place you weren't gonna spend much time in anyway) was ridiculous. Never understood why they didn't just include headphones so you could listen to music on the go.

- Again, it's Guilin. I don't want arcades in it, personally. It just wouldn't make sense.

- Who cares about the rating?

- Never have and never will understand the "need" for a physical copy. The whole "what about when they remove it from the servers" argument is horribly flawed. What about when your disc gets used as a coaster or gets nicked?

- "HD" ports would be nice. Do we need them though? No.



I do understand that you have concerns though. Personally, I'm not exactly looking forward to the game. I was always hoping that the Guilin section of the story would just be a transitional phase to justify Ryo going from young martial arts student to kung-fu master. Y'know, like a long, drawn-out montage with some mandatory explanation about the mirrors, only for him to eventually move onto another urban setting to track down each Chi-You Men leader.

Considering the GDC post-mortem though, it's clear we're gonna be in the middle of nowhere for the rest of the series.

[mjq jazz bar]

Dude's clearly a spurned Xbox fanboy. His bit about how the game was supposed to be on another Xbox console gives him away. Here's a tip, bud. There's a reason the game never came out for the 360 or the PS3. No one wanted to release it. We should be so lucky one of the major players took interest in assisting Yu Suzuki with the third game in a series that's been dormant for 15 years.

[ash55]

So I'm an obscure gamer. I usually don't buy any new games, the last two new games I played were GTA 5 and Thief 4 and you can see there is a pattern, as to how being a big Shenmue fan, I like those other franchises.

And I don't pay attention to E3. I think it's a bunch of bullshit and usually the best and upcoming games and gaming ideals are ones that aren't featured there. So I can't believe I just now got the memo of Shenmue 3, finally being in post production.

But with every positive, there is a negative. I do not like how they are abusing the kickstarter system with this. Is it against the rules, no, but it's still being abusive. Either way, I'm not donating any money, I will instead by full retail price of the completed game on opening week so they get their profits worth.

Another thing, this is a Sony console exclusive, and Sega and Microsoft has no production in this. So that is kinda a bummer as Shenmue 3 was supposed to be released on the xbox, or whatever carbon copy version of the xbox, which presently is the Xbox One. But, it is what it is.

However, I'm sure Shenmue 3 will feature these changes.

As already seen in the trailer, characters that were owned by Sega will now be redesigned to avoid copyright, as Ryo will be less and less designed after Akira from VF. Any returning characters will also probably be tweaked greatly.
DLC or other content advertising Sony. Billboards featuring current and past Sony games.
No toys
No capsule machines
Anything to do with sega will be removed.
No sega soundtracks available in corner stores
No arcade with classic sega games.
An "M" rating possibly as ESRB doesn't play anymore nowadays.
Digital Download (No Compact version even though they say it will have a physical version, I'm sure it will only be released by digital download on the console)
No HD or rereleasing of previous versions on PSN as those games are still owned by Sega.

Thoughts?

How is the Kickstarter abusing the system? No publisher is willing to fund Shenmue, so he has turned to crowd-funding. Makes sense to me. It's entirely up to you whether you wish to back the project though, so I wouldn't wish to sway you either way. Just know the facts in order to make an informed decision: the more successful the Kickstarter, the better position Yu Suzuki is in, as well as the future of Shenmue.

Shenmue gurus please correct me if I'm wrong since I'm no expert... I don't know why Shenmue II ended up on Xbox, I assume it had something to do with Peter Moore (being ex-SEGA and moving to Xbox). Peter Moore is now at EA and Microsoft never owned Shenmue, so why assume it should be an Xbox title going forward?

It's in pre-production not post-production.

The characters in the early build are just for prototyping purposes. They'll be improved over time as the game progresses. Their face have nothing to do with SEGA owning the rights to Ryo, etc. Why would they specifically own the likeness of a character but not the IP as a whole?

Toys are confirmed. You can even become a toy if you back certain tiers on Kickstarter.

Capsule machines, thus, are also confirmed.

I don't know what the relationship is between Sega and Yu Suzuki. All we know is that it's a rather friendly one.

Not sure what you're getting at with the rating thing.

Um, what? Why would it be digital only when they're releasing physical disks? Isn't that a contradiction?

Yeah, it's up to SEGA to re-release Shenmue I and II. And backing the Kickstarter shows SEGA just how hungry fans are for more Shenmue.

[shredingskin]

Thoughts?

Same old, same old.

[PILMAN]

The idea that Kickstarter is just for indie games is just fucking ridiculous. Kickstarter is for projects that have tried and failed to secure funding. A project is put up on there, and if there is enough demand from people, and they're willing to put up money out of their own pockets to see it come to fruition, then it goes ahead. That isn't abuse, it's using it for it's intended purpose.

However...

One thing that pisses me off is when massively funded projects don't give back to the community. I mean, c'mon, show some love and pledge to another project you like. Even if it's just a couple of quid, don't be a tight-fisted twat.

As for the changes:

- Ryo was never like Akira. Spiked hair, yes. Scar, yes. Everything else? No. The original Akira's Quest or whatever was an entirely new design for Akira, one that was never trademarked or copyrighted, it was merely conceptual. The "different Ryo" look is purely down to poor modelling.

- Yu Suzuki has been granted the Shenmue license. Any other trademarked looks will be included.

- Billboards in Guilin? Doubt that pal.

- No toys or capsule machines? The people who are paying to have their face slapped on a toy will surely be disappointed with that...

- I personally never liked that "Everything is SEGA!" thing. It was nice at first, don't get me wrong, but it broke immersion slightly. And as far as Shenmue canon goes, SEGA are a Japanese arcade/toy/building company. Again, I doubt we'd see it in Guilin anyway. "Realistically speaking", that is.

- SEGA soundtracks were only available at the Tomato Convenience Store, as far as I remember. Even then you had to win them in a raffle. On top of this, the fact that you had to actually pause the damn game to listen to them (unless they were on a jukebox in a place you weren't gonna spend much time in anyway) was ridiculous. Never understood why they didn't just include headphones so you could listen to music on the go.

- Again, it's Guilin. I don't want arcades in it, personally. It just wouldn't make sense.

- Who cares about the rating?

- Never have and never will understand the "need" for a physical copy. The whole "what about when they remove it from the servers" argument is horribly flawed. What about when your disc gets used as a coaster or gets nicked?

- "HD" ports would be nice. Do we need them though? No.



I do understand that you have concerns though. Personally, I'm not exactly looking forward to the game. I was always hoping that the Guilin section of the story would just be a transitional phase to justify Ryo going from young martial arts student to kung-fu master. Y'know, like a long, drawn-out montage with some mandatory explanation about the mirrors, only for him to eventually move onto another urban setting to track down each Chi-You Men leader.

Considering the GDC post-mortem though, it's clear we're gonna be in the middle of nowhere for the rest of the series.

Agreed, that was what I enjoyed about the series was going from small town Yokosuka in Japan trying to get money to travel to Hong Kong to find lan di and desperately trying to find a lead, then the second game being in a foreign country away from Japan in huge Hong Kong lost and not being familiar to the culture. When it gets to Kowloon and how dramatically different it is from the quarters in Hong Kong , it reminds you that you are in this large criminal underworld that plagues the poverty stricken region of Kowloon with rotting old buildings used for multiple purposes and then to transition to the rural wilderness or Guilin full of isolation but learning more about your character and the core of the story and the Phoenix mirror where it came from.

We are not looking for another repeat of the game, sure many fans would like to see it but I want to see the story continue and in the remote areas of Guilin, this is what I have been waiting for. Don't get me wrong, darts and the arcades were fun in shenmue and shenmue 2 but by the time I hit Guilin , I didn't miss them at that point, it would have broke immersion for me and that's part of what made Guilin special is talking to those redneck kids and a tiny village by the river then walking into remote forests and woods with nothing but the sunlight, trees and talking to shenhua seeing mysterious environmental mysteries on the way while in awe.

[Reprise]

But with every positive, there is a negative. I do not like how they are abusing the kickstarter system with this. Is it against the rules, no, but it's still being abusive.

[mjq jazz bar]

Let's confront the notion that it's abusing Kickstarter.

We're that true, would Kickstarter have featured the game on the front page?

[James Brown]

Physical copy, will be exactly that, on disc, in a ps4 or pc box, again, with a disc. How could they use the word Physical, and charge $30 more without telling you it's just a piece of paper inside a box? Not gonna happen, that would be scandalous, so it's 100% definately on a disc lol.

OP just seems very butthurt that it's a Sony Exclusive, and has that Xbox One digital only mentality.

Also capsule toys and machines will be in the game, scroll down a little bit next time you check out the Kickstarter page, and that will become extremely transparent.

[Coxy]

Thank you for your post, it sheds much light on how misinformed people can be due to bad journalists

[PILMAN]

This isn't about console wars but more so about facts. The poster came in here clearly criticizing the kickstarter campaign, it wasn't even a legitimate concern about the kickstarter or how it was being run but complete speculation that somehow he believed it would be a mediocre game or a failure and based on this has some sort of grudge that the game originally came out on Xbox and was "supposed" to be released on the 360 but wasn't.

I'm not for exclusives on consoles but in this case I think it's very well justified. Most of us here have been following shenmue from the very beginning, I've been on the dojo since its founding but registered on the forums in January 2004 , most of us waited every year for e3 about some sort of announcement of shenmue even settling for a movie or a manga when we knew and felt at the time there was no chance that shenmue 3 would come just to know the end of the story. Most of us had given up the idea that it was ever going to come out but still held on, therefore we will take what we can to see the story continue.

To go into more detail about shenmue on the xbox, it is much deeper than that, we all know that shenmue was originally developed for sega Saturn and all work that was done had to be restarted on the dreamcast and released essentially close to the consoles death, it just wasn't good timing, and at the time shenmue 2 while released in Europe for dreamcast, did not come over here and yes mr moore played some role in that but originally Microsoft had some form of agreement from what I recall and understand that they would be involved in shenmue marketing and as a result it would not be released on dreamcast in the U.S., on the forum at that time there were major complaints that shenmue was not being advertised, and on the Xbox forums at the time, others were upset the game was not being recognized, a number of gaming magazines did review shenmue for the Xbox, while some were positive, like ign, most were mediocre ranging closer to the 70s for rating and was mocked many times on TV heavily on g4tv also known as tech TV at the time. It was actually rated 2nd worse game of all time on g4tv and angered many of us here at the dojo. Articles in oxm and other gaming magazines generally felt the game was boring and had very little information and at that time your average cod player couldn't care less about the game and would openly mock shenmue.

There is a reason why i don't believe shenmue should show up on xbox, Microsoft barely advertised or made any one aware of shenmue through advertisements which I will dig up articles which from my understanding played a major role to allow Microsoft to acquire it as a exclusive on the Xbox at the time in the U.S., reviews generally were very poor including from oxm, there was a demo of the game included on oxm but it didn't show any of the core features of shenmue, it was some qte action with yuanda Zus representative hiding out at one of the places where you did the chawan sign and had a qte fight in the market, as a result it gave people the wrong idea of the game and didn't show any of the open world features. It really had no where near the marketing or exposure that other major games had at that time and was treated more as second tier with really no benefit over the dreamcast version, actually if anything we had a reduction of textures which were noticeable that the moon was missing, joys bike had missing textures, many textures were reversed or gates had removed textures, thinks that didn't make sense overall and of course the change to the english language.

Microsoft also released the backwards compatibility for shenmue very late on the 360 and had significant issues. I feel that as a result, shenmue fares better on the PC and ps4 where at least it's getting the marketing it needs and funded by Pepe who care about the game.

[Domosuke]

I want to first of all apologize to the Shenmue fandom. I might end up changing my mind on contributing to the project. I unfortunately just went on youtube (as that's not a good source for the collective) and saw many gaming bloggers show lots of negative comments about this whole situation so I guess didn't see it from the other point of view.

Going back to the beginning, I kinda found out about Shenmue in a strange way.

And yes you caught me, I'm an Xbox fanboy. But I guess I'm just going to have to get over it. I would prefer for Shenmue 3 to be on Xbox, but playstation is fine.

And also I just now found out about the kickstarter

I first heard about the game when I got an Original Xbox back in 2002 for christmas as I already had a ps2 at the time and I was about ten years old. The sample disc which came for free in every console, had Jet Set Radio as a launch title, had a teaser trailer two minute video for Shenmue 2. I got intrigued.

So I went to my local gamestop and asked if they had it, and the clerk suggested that I play the first one. My older brother had a dreamcast so I bought the first Shenmue and fell in love with it. I love all modernized diverse and westernized characters, as well as a feudal japan theme to it surrounding the Chinese/Japanese mafia.

So after I completed Shenmue 1, I then bought Shenmue 2 and the rest is history.

At this point being that Shenmue 2 is still compatible on an Xbox 360, I just find it sad that it's never going to be on the next version on the xbox. But again, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Thank you for your comments.