You know, it is interesting how Adam pointed out along with James how incredibly complicated Shenmue's programming was. It was held together by "rubber bands" in a metaphorical sense.

I remember Yu talking about how he liked UE4 for Shenmue 3, but was more used to really getting his hands in there to code what he wants. Sounds like he really tinkered big time in Shenmue!

The true reason it is a miracle it runs, even on modern consoles is it takes an entire development team to replicate and transfer the particular coding of essentially one person.

Sega jumped on the money train that someone else started.

Well, yes. Any company would look at a chance to make some revenue. They relinquished the rights because they weren't sure of a return on their investment, especially considering Shenmue wasnt very successful all those years ago.

They were even timid to do these, according to Adam's insider info. Shenmue, despite it's cult following and critical acclaim for the time, left quite a burn financially to Sega when Sony crushed the Dreamcast with PS2s hype train.

Yes, Shenmue has a very strong community, but was it really strong enough to fund a sequel outside SEGA? Was it strong enough to justify efforts to port the games nearly 20 years later?

They did quite a lot to these games for this re-release, in all honesty. They could've just shoveled them, but they didn't. Could they have done more? Maybe, but how did they know Shenmue III's success wasnt just hype off the E3 of Dreams or a one-off for nostalgia goggle wearers?

SEGA has been surprised, very surprised by the reactions to this compilation. Shenmue IV will have only one chance to get made and that is back in-house with SEGA themselves, arguably. Another Kickstarter will not have the same success.

Our support for their efforts on this collection is our one shot to vote with our wallet on the continuation of the series. Now that's a money train I'll jump on.

This story has a point at the end, but is still an opinion I suppose.

Yesterday, I went to help my mother run some errands at home. She is getting older and struggling in the wake of
my father's death last year, as he took care of everything while they were married.

She wanted to buy something for the grandchildren; she rarely ever sees them due to distance so we walked around Target. They happened to have a lone NES Classic in the case, which she thought the kids would love as I had one at their current age(5 and 3.5). So she got it as their gift..

The system runs in 16:9 before you choose a game and then switches to the 4:3 mode with black borders when you select one and begin to play on a widescreen HDTV...

You know what? It didnt jar me, nor did it take away from the experience for me or my son(young daughter just wanted to watch it).

I doubt Shenmue HDs transition will really bother me. I say this because I was one of the naysayers and even though it still elicits a twinge of disappointment, I'm more ok with it now.


As an aside, I walked into my father's "music room", as he was a massive audiophile and sauntered around a bit reminiscing. Next to the altar which houses his medical license, etc was a stack of CDs he often listened to on his large speakers. On the top was Shenmue Orchestra and Shenmue Chapter 1.

He always snuck my CDs as a kid, as he loved classical or instrumental. Fitting that would be there.

I'm saving up for my next payday so I have a cushion to go ahead and up to the $450 tier, if it is still available by then.

Surprised they didn't confirm participation at Gamescom, but I've got a good feeling they are going to do that on August 3rd, similar to SEGAs reveal of 1+2's release date trailer.

This community astounds me. I've followed many Kickstarters, but I've never seen any pull in that much money last minute via Slacker Backer. I'm wagering a lot of people upgraded their pledges.

I honestly feel it will blow through to $7.5 million before it ends, granting us the fully fleshed out combat system which is what I really wanted.

Yeah, we were probably going to get it anyway,(they cant say that because nobody would continue to contribute) but if the area expansion goals beyond are funded by DS, then reaching the High Ground System means we get the fully realized experience.