Shenmue Dojo

Lately I have these questions in my mind and I would like your opinion on them:

1- How many copies does Shenmue 3 needs to sell to have Shenmue 4? Do you think Shenmue 3 will sell well?

2-If Shenmue 3 ended up like Shenmue 2 and wasn't commercially successful, would you support another Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue 4?

1- I don't know specific numbers, but i think it would need to sell enough for ysnet and sony to make profit.
2- Absolutely.

1. Ya it should sell decently even for a series of its age and I think even if Shenmue 1/2 HD dont come out. Ofcourse if they do come out then Shenmue 3 sales might turn out rather impressive.

2. Ya ofcourse. Where's the Shenmue 4 kickstarter? Sign me up and take my money now. Nothing but trust for Yu Suzuki and the team.

It's really unclear, but it will probably sell enough to its own fans to recoup its investment, at least the initial 6 mil. Success beyond that is anybody's guess. Lots of people still don't get Shenmue and like to pick on it but there's more potential for it to find its audience than ever before.

Here's a scenario with math- Yakuza 4 sold 140k units in the US. That was a game with no English dub. PS exclusive.
So assuming that Shenmue has an equivalent or bigger fanbase (probably includes most of Yakuza's fanbase by default) in the US, and also reaches the PC market, expanding its potential sales. Now imagine sells only 100,000 copies at $60 each. That generates about enough revenue to break even, i.e YSNet has 6 million again after spending it on the game. Roughly. Slightly less, actually. And that's with 100k copies sold.

If it sells 200,000 copies at $60 each, it's will have reached profitability- they'll make back the 6 million and have almost another 6 mil.

But even Yakuza 4 sold only 630k copies in Japan.

So if I were to guess, I'd put it at slightly higher numbers, bolstered by PC sales and more exposure/hype because of the legendary wait and record kickstarter. That means, maybe 160-180k in the US. 200-300,000 in Japan (it is a Japanese game) and maybe 120k in EU. That puts 500,000 copies sold worldwide within reach, so maybe it makes 2 times the investment. If it sells as much as Yakuza 4 worldwide (930k) it's going to be extremely profitable, but Yakuza 4 had a much, much much bigger budget.

Either way, unless it actually loses money (sells under 200k worldwide) a fourth game isn't unlikely, but it's not 100% guaranteed either.


If the fans Shenmue III as much as I and II, they could do another fan Kickstarter in 3 or 4 years, and it'll probably raise enough.

So really the biggest factor is how good they make the new game- they were excused for various technical difficulties with the first games- the tank controls were an issue but not as much as the lack of fluidity in scene transitions and some really outdated looking dramatic cutscenes, so they've got some work cut out for them bringing the standards up from 1999 levels. Don't get me wrong, it was god tier for in engine gameplay back then and the mocap was never a problem, it was just some of the stuff would look ba if you weren't accounting for the fact that it's a 15 year old game, and they won't have that excuse with the new one.

I'd recommend they stick with a Japanese dub to avoid ruining it with bad localization- it's a very Asian game anyway, the dub never really fit and for IIx the dub makes the game unplayable. no offense to Corey Marshall.

I hope they take in to account the amount already pre-sold through the Kickstarter.

Sonoshee wrote:I hope they take in to account the amount already pre-sold through the Kickstarter.

Ya thats about 70,000 "sold".

It would still be cool if there was a donation option of some kind where we can get cool rewards like with the Kickstarter.

Axm wrote:

Sonoshee wrote:I hope they take in to account the amount already pre-sold through the Kickstarter.

Ya thats about 70,000 "sold".

so they have to sell an extra 70k for profitability? or at least viability to get the game funded by a publisher next time around, because fundraising sales don't simulate the number an investor could expect to sell if he put in that amount of money...

I can't imagine another KS campaign will be necessary to get Shenmue 4 into development. There are basically no development costs for YS and there will be a lot of people who buy this game on hype alone (see Duke Nukem Forever) to net enough profit to keep the series going, perhaps even enough profit to make Shenmue 4's budget significantly larger than Shenmue 3.

The scenario that worries me is if the series is to be five games. If the fourth game doesn't sell well enough to keep the series going we would be right back into the situation we have been in for years. Another KS campaign wouldn't draw nearly the interest we had for Shenmue 3.

If they would just open up PayPal like I said in my earlier topic with fans giving each month 5 or 10 dollars, we wont need to worry about the future of Shenmue

Any word yet on when that's going to be done?
Because I agree that with an always-open paypal option, the fans will easily keep the series alive (along with the revenue from selling the game)

From 2010 (Publishers include development, marketing and other expenses) :

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/enterta ... -game.html

Remember that YSnet is actually the publisher of the PS4 version and that the retail release is not guaranteed.

Yokosuka wrote: From 2010 (Publishers include development, marketing and other expenses) :

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/enterta ... -game.html

Remember that YSnet is actually the publisher of the PS4 version and that the retail release is not guaranteed.

If YSnet is the publisher, then what the hell is sony role ??