by Telekill » Sun Dec 27, 2015 12:31 pm
Oh man. I remember learning that Shenmue 2 wasn't going to be on Dreamcast in America and I was pissed. Considering that the game released in both Japan and Europe, I felt it was a slap in the face to the fans to not include a Dreamcast release in America. Then when I heard that it was coming to America on Xbox only, that pissed me off even more.
To this day I hold that Dreamcast was pushed out of the industry because Microsoft joined in and I believe the industry can only support three main competitors at a time. Seriously, take a look at the history. It used to be Atari, Nintendo and Sega but when Playstation released, Atari went third party due to not being able to keep up. All those other 1990's systems like 3DO, Neo Geo, CDi... none could gain ground as the three main spots (Playstation, Sega, Nintendo) were chosen by the consumers. Is it coincidence that Xbox joined the foray the same year that Dreamcast died? I don't think so. There are many who blame the anticipation of the PS2 for the death of Dreamcast, but had Xbox not been created, I believe that the Dreamcast would have lived at least another two years and we would have potentially kick started Shenmue IV this year instead. Yes, Sega made poor choices... many poor choices (Sega CD, 32X, Nomad, Neptune) but it's those poor choices coupled with the release of Xbox that killed them, making them go third party.
Jumping back to Shenmue 2, when I saw that Shenmue 2 was Xbox exclusive in N. America I cursed Sega and felt no pity for them as they fell down their sewage hole. For all intensive purposes, Sega was dead to me. I had only bought two Sega games since which was the Sega Genesis Collection on PSP back when it released and Sonic CD on PS3. Shenmue 3 will be the first game with the Sega logo that I'll have obtained since.
Fast foward to a couple years after the death of Dreamcast and a buddy of mine had downloaded literally dozens of Dreamcast titles including the EU version of Shenmue 2 with English subtitles. I wanted to continue the story but refused to buy an Xbox for it so I gave Sega the middle finger and had my buddy burn me a copy of the game. Luckily it was self-booting so I didn't need to buy anything, though I did make it a nice case. I still have that copy to this day along with the first game as a legit copy.
Going on near 15 years after the death of Dreamcast and Sega is still in a pretty bad spot with their continued bad decisions. I'm hoping that Sony just buys the Shenmue IP from Sega in order to ensure that we get an ending before Sega dies off completely.
Fun fact... I hadn't been as pissed about a game going exclusive against a system I owned since Shenmue 2 until Microsoft bought out a year of timed exclusivity with Tomb Raider.