What's "Shenmue Premiere?"

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What's "Shenmue Premiere?"

Postby Kiyuu » Wed Jan 12, 2005 1:19 pm

Has everyone seen this dazzling picture of Yokohama?

http://myweb.hinet.net/home4/din/csyj003.jpg

It's one of the pictures from the site Leon linked in another topic.

http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~shenmuedoj ... 214#499214

Anyway, you can see Pacifico Yokohama, the place where Shenmue Premiere was
held on Dec. 20, 1998, in that picture. See this:

Image

The white roof on the left is the National Convention Hall, the exact site of the event.
Check this: http://www.pacifico.co.jp/index_e.html

As you may know, you can download the video of Shenmue Premiere in the Dojo:

http://www.fileplanet.com/dl.aspx?/plan ... ue45od.zip

Fortunately, I found a picture report on the Premiere in a Japanese fan site:
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/gsaweb/s ... snap01.htm

Here's the contents of the gift pack everyone got at the Premiere:
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/gsaweb/s ... yage01.htm

Actually, five more Premieres were held throughout Japan in January, 1999.
It's really a shame I didn't know about Shenmue back then... :cry:
Last edited by Kiyuu on Fri Jan 14, 2005 4:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby rens of heavens » Wed Jan 12, 2005 3:51 pm

Great stuff!
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Postby LanDC » Wed Jan 12, 2005 3:59 pm

I've included a link to this topic as a reference in our Press Events page. Tidbits such as this are always a great addition, and much appreciated.

The Premiere never ceases to amaze me. The effort SEGA made will always be admirable, no matter how disappointing they are at this day and age. The expense of the event must've been extraordinary on it's own. I'm sure handing out those gifts to 3,000 attendees (assuming the place was full) wasn't so cheap.

You know, to this day, I still cannot believe Shenmue goes so unnoticed. How can such a large attempt to get a game noticed not succeed more than it did? It's a terrible, terrible shame. And it's also a shame that I don't live in Japan, or I might've got to attend that myself! Even here in America, Shenmue had me interested ever since the day I heard about it. So I surely would have been attracted to that event. Oh well, where's a time machine when you want one? ;)
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Postby Lan Di-sama » Wed Jan 12, 2005 4:38 pm

While it is a shame that Shenmue couldn't have been more successful, it really didn't go unnoticed-it got mostly high reviews from the press and a lot of people (not enough) do know about it. By the way, if any of you haven't read the Shenmue 1 review at IGN, you should. It's very well written and it got a lot of praise. Also, people still get into Shenmue every day. Unfortunately, they're picking up used copies so Sega doesn't profit from them. I bet half the fans' copies of Shenmue/Shenmue 2 were preowned since by the time they got into it, getting a hold of new copies was hard (My games are used, but I think my Shenmue 2 import for DC was new). It's too bad that the sales didn't truly reflect the public's opinion on the game. There's a lot of haters, but so many people really do appreciate it.
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Postby Supa » Wed Jan 12, 2005 7:32 pm

I really wished that SEGA would whip out Shenmue games like Square - Enix does with FF. It certainly deserves more than itself and FF gets.
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Postby Kenny » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:21 pm

If you mean like the way they did it with FFVII, they kinda already did with Shenmue Online.

But I imagine more spinoffs of the franchise would generate more complaints than raves.
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Postby Lan Di-sama » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:23 pm

I think he meant they should make as many Shenmue games as they can. Stretch it out to five or six games like it was probably originally planned.
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Postby Kiyuu » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:24 pm

LanDC wrote:I've included a link to this topic as a reference in our Press Events page. Tidbits such as this are always a great addition, and much appreciated.

Thank you for the link, LanDC! :D I wish I knew more about the Premiere...

LanDC wrote:The Premiere never ceases to amaze me. The effort SEGA made will always be admirable, no matter how disappointing they are at this day and age. The expense of the event must've been extraordinary on it's own. I'm sure handing out those gifts to 3,000 attendees (assuming the place was full) wasn't so cheap.

3,000? Oh, no... as you see here, the Premiere was held 3 times on that day in Yokohama.

Image

http://www.itmedia.co.jp/games/news/9901/18/news06.html

According to the list in above link, the turnout for Yokohama events was 12,000 in total.
And, 31,000 lucky people nationwide got the gift pack. It's really extravagant! :shock:

LanDC wrote:You know, to this day, I still cannot believe Shenmue goes so unnoticed. How can such a large attempt to get a game noticed not succeed more than it did? It's a terrible, terrible shame. And it's also a shame that I don't live in Japan, or I might've got to attend that myself! Even here in America, Shenmue had me interested ever since the day I heard about it. So I surely would have been attracted to that event. Oh well, where's a time machine when you want one? ;)

It's almost tragic that Shenmue has been noted to many game players as merely the most
budgeted game ever made or something like that. Most of them had given up Shenmue
as it's different from the other games, before they appreciate its true greatness. :cry:
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Postby Lan Di-sama » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:29 pm

Wow, quite a turnout! Really shows the effort Yu Suzuki, Am2 and Sega poured into Shenmue. If only the full story could be told :( I still have some hope.
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Postby Kenny » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:53 pm

Lan Di-sama wrote:I think he meant they should make as many Shenmue games as they can. Stretch it out to five or six games like it was probably originally planned.


I was thinking that too (and they should) but SquareEnix as of late is milking a few parts of their key franchise FF.
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Postby LanDC » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:54 pm

Kiyuu wrote:3,000? Oh, no... as you see here, the Premiere was held 3 times on that day in Yokohama.

Image

http://www.itmedia.co.jp/games/news/9901/18/news06.html

According to the list in above link, the turnout for Yokohama events was 12,000 in total.
And, 31,000 lucky people nationwide got the gift pack. It's really extravagant! :shock:


Oh... my god. Well, that's truely more than I expected. :shock: Extravagant, indeed. It's obvious that Shenmue's premiere(s) had a nice role in it's massive budget. For those who still like to believe that Shenmue III will be extremely costly, they should look at this.

Kiyuu wrote:It's almost tragic that Shenmue has been noted to many game players as merely the most
budgeted game ever made or something like that. Most of them had given up Shenmue
as it's different from the other games, before they appreciate its true greatness. :cry:


It goes way beyond tragic. Onto a word in which the human tongue cannot pronounce. Muragh... dleah... See, it's useless!
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Postby Kiyuu » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:55 pm

Lan Di-sama wrote:Wow, quite a turnout! Really shows the effort Yu Suzuki, Am2 and Sega poured into Shenmue. If only the full story could be told :( I still have some hope.

Indeed... We need the full story. And of course, there's always some hope!
Keep hoping, shall we? ;)
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Postby Miles Prower » Sun Jan 16, 2005 7:24 am

I want that Shenhua figure ;_;
BTW, I noticed something fairly interesting in this flyer;
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/gsaweb/s ... nmue18.jpg
If you look on the bottom left, there are pics of the bit where Ryo is listening to the cassette tape in Ren's hideout. Notice on the bottom one that it seems originally that you could listen to *all* of the tapes that Ryo got from Huang's room! o_o
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Postby James » Fri Jan 21, 2005 2:18 am

Miles Prower wrote:I want that Shenhua figure ;_;
BTW, I noticed something fairly interesting in this flyer;
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/gsaweb/s ... nmue18.jpg
If you look on the bottom left, there are pics of the bit where Ryo is listening to the cassette tape in Ren's hideout. Notice on the bottom one that it seems originally that you could listen to *all* of the tapes that Ryo got from Huang's room! o_o


Unless that's from the cutscene prior to actually listening to the tape, perhaps...
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Postby Miles Prower » Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:01 am

James wrote:
Miles Prower wrote:I want that Shenhua figure ;_;
BTW, I noticed something fairly interesting in this flyer;
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/gsaweb/s ... nmue18.jpg
If you look on the bottom left, there are pics of the bit where Ryo is listening to the cassette tape in Ren's hideout. Notice on the bottom one that it seems originally that you could listen to *all* of the tapes that Ryo got from Huang's room! o_o


Unless that's from the cutscene prior to actually listening to the tape, perhaps...

Ah yes, didn't think of that :oops:
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