by LeeringShrimp » Sat May 31, 2014 1:57 pm
I'm a loooong time lurker on this site (got Shenmue xmas 2000 and was one damn happy 5th grader for several months) and am just now making an account.
My two cents; I've read hopeful yet vague announcements over and over for almost 15 years now. For the last 10 years they've been consistently disappointing. Plus, as much as I hate to admit it, I've never met a person in real life who shared my enthusiasm, or any enthusiasm at all, for Shenmue. The closest I've had to a Shenmue convert was a lacrosse buddy in high school who liked to come to my house to play plinko in Hong Kong. As it turns out, a surprisingly small amount of people in real life would like to play a game of lucky hit.
I WISH Shenmue was super popular because I want Sega to have a valid financial reason to finish the story, and I want Ryu to get revenge against Lan Di and figure out what the hell was going on with that sword and are those mirrors magic or what??! However, I won't even allow myself to think Sega is planning an HD remake because these hopes have invariably led to disappointment. The series hasn't been a financial success for them. It's a hard sell. In fact, I remember grade school friends laughing at Shenmue when they saw me play it. "No space marines? No thanks." Teenaged kids are still a HUUUUGE factor in hard core video game sales, and unfortunately Call of Duty, Halo and the like have a lock on them.
I want to be wrong, but I'm not holding my breath. My guess is Sega is simply keeping their patent fresh in case they want to release another stupid mobile game or shenmue online 2 or whatever misguided BS their questionable market research department thinks can make them money.
Then again, I was motivated enough to make an account on this website specifically to weigh in, so maybe I'm more hopeful than I'm letting on.
Rock on, dudes and dudettes \m/