http://i.imgur.com/d9loPAf.jpg

Q: Will the original voice actors reprise their roles?

YS: I auditioned Masaya Matsukaze and Corey Marshall for Shenmue I & II, and I believe their voices are perfect for Ryo’s voice. So I’d definitely like to have them reprise the role again this time. We’re currently in negotiations and I’m sure they will both be happy to do so, so please look forward to that.

Links: Corey Marshall's Twitter | Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Page | News Archive

Of course anyone who knows me and has seen some of my comments knows I am going to donate, but how things stand right now, it's all just a question of how much I will be donating, which is out of my hands right now.

The point I am making is this Twitch stream was an opportunity to promote Shenmue, it's Kickstarter, and also entice people who may not be as huge a Shenmue fan as we are, to consider contributing. However thanks to the schoolboy amaturish nature of last night's broadcast, I can't help feel there will be people who will have switched off and lost interest in the project. Or just laughed at how unprofessional it was and will decide not to back.

Either way, the broadcast will have done more bad than good I feel.

In fact... For a long time I've been tempted to do a video like James Reiner does, as well as a few other people from the community do in terms of just talking about their thoughts etc. And I am tempted to do my first ever video on my thoughts of Shenmue 3, and the Kickstarter campaign up to this point. Will see what happens.

It wasn't THAT bad. He was just rather disrespectful, especially when considering Japanese manners. How did he ever get this job in Japan? Maybe being quirky was part of his thing, not sure Suzuki knew this when signing up though.

That's exactly what my wife said when I've showed the live to her (she's japanese) !

"How come he's working with Yu Suzuki ?"
"He has no respect"

Cannot say I disagree :/

Game Trailers has given Shenmue 3 the best debut award at E3. Winning out against the heavy hitter FF7 Remake.

Videos: E3 2015 Awards: Best Debut | Michael Huber Reaction | Shenmue 3 Reaction Playlist

Adam Koralik got the watch. That's AWESOME!

Soniku,
This all good and dandy but it's not acceptable storytelling. The world of game of thrones is only interesting as its characters. Is there a point to be made with Jon's death? After being shown he'd grow to be a formidable commander of an human army against the White walkers, having been given the most powerful weapon against them (it has even a name and history behind it) and faithful loyal companions including a giant wolf, I'd expect a major plot development after so much buildup but no... It's all puff.. all back to zero so we can now focus on a different set of characters .. until they die of course... And reset.

Upped from $300 to $1500 to get myself in the game. That's a good story to tell the kids and be immortalized for life.

Opened another account to do another $60 for a physical PS4 copy as well.

Look out for James Brown's face in Choubu !

Crying.... yep. Just like i was when Shenmue 3 was announced.

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j290/PeterC2005/Shenmue%203%20dinner_zpsnssnyjmg.png

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j290/PeterC2005/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-07-03-17-11-23_zpsfisfrbbt.png

I'M GOING TO MEET YU SUZUKI IN MONACO!! FUCK!!

I am beyond stoked!!

Not only is it more convenient, but also that's then Shenmue 3 will be shown again at the new Monaco gaming confrence!!!

Really happy for you Peter.

I'm disappointed you won't be joining us in Japan though. It would have been fun to visit Yokosuka bars together and pick fights with sailors.

I'm not sure how LanDC feels but I have a little bit of a bittersweet feeling of once having an exclusive dinner with Yu to now being 1 of 3 dinners. It's not overly important in the end. I don't want to be selfish. I'm more concerned with the game being made at the best possible quality, as well as having exposure to the school. Our story made the news in Guilin and we are getting ton's of interest from all over China. A lot of local gamer's are talking about the game now and wanting it to be released in China.

Updated just now from my $510!

well for 30 on the 3rd today I upped my pledge by 3..... times



better prepare my ugly mug for people passing through Choubu

I must be insane

Shenmue III has smashed crowdfunding records only halfway through. Right now, it is the 11th most funded project on Kickstarter- the 3rd (Soon to be 2nd) most funded video game.

As a model, Kickstarter technically never guaranteed Shenmue III funding. I know we all dream of the 11 million experience and stretch goals to get the game, but today I wanted to take stock of our success, because I think going over 200% of the initial asking amount is a milestone worth celebrating.


:rainbowafro: :bday: :smilecolros: :beerchug: \:D/

My polite exchange in the comments with the guy who wrote that article...



Needless to say, my comments have a lot more likes than his do.

Even other Kotaku staff don't like it:

http://i.imgur.com/pEaarMo.png

I'm at the beach but just spent a few mins getting caught up on everything. To be clear, all of Kotaku is off today, and we've got a guest freelancer running the site, so posts aren't going through the regular editorial process. As you guys saw, I expressed my feelings in the comments.

There we have it. :rotflmao:

I have talked to Jason Schreier, News Editor of Kotaku about this. He is now posting in the Shenmue thread on GAF. He's not happy about this article at all. Apparently the staff is off this weekend and so this post did not go through normal editorial review process.

Even fellow Kotaku editors be like "What the hell...?"

Image courtesy of Ryo Hazuki from Neogaf:

http://i.imgur.com/pEaarMo.png

Yeah. Jason has an account at GAF too and has responded in there.

http://i.imgur.com/hDxOnKp.png

http://i.imgur.com/MA2A7GB.png

Jackie Fhan wrote: link removed

Nope. I'd delete that tweet if I were you. Trolling a troll is giving them what they want.

Better to be the bigger person and let these people embarrass themselves.

Thanks for the messages guys. Grab a cup of tea and chill, i will be explaining a few things.

Firstly i have been trying to get more dinner slots added for the better part of 2 weeks now. I missed out on the last Japan slot, which has turned out to be fine! But it did bum me out when it was taken, mostly because i have always wanted to visit Japan, and also meet Matt and also David. So after that slot went, it was logical to at least let someone know that, "hey i have $10,000 i want to give you. Please take it and throw out an extra plate of chow.... all i want to do is meet Yu Suzuki".
So with that in mind, i took to twitter, and just got in contact straight away with Cedric Biscay. To my shock, he tweeted me back with come cryptic comments, with a non confusing positive vibe off of them so things looked good.

As time went on, i was worried about being forgotten, so i decided to post pictures each day of my Shenmue collection, with hashtags mentioning i wanted another dinner and i had $10,000. Just to keep the idea public. But this morning when i woke up i was feeling very negative and was talking to Ziming on chat. I had more or less given up hope this morning, PLUS, i had sold some of my gaming treasures which seemingly had turned out for no reason. One item i sold in particular was a Halo Reach signed poster by the original Bungie team. The last game and the last time they were all together! I expected maybe $200 would be a good auction total for it, but i got a message from a guy in the UK and after a lot of questions about the condition he was happy to buy it for £100. A bit of a loss, but i didnt mind that too much. But this morning he was messaging me complaining he wanted half of his money refunded because i didnt have no caps on the sides of the poster tube and also no bubble wrap in the middle! It was common knowledge he said! I couldnt find a big enough tube for the size of the Poster, so i bought one in a graphics shop which didnt come with caps so i just taped it up well. The poster was fine when it reached him, but this was "not the correct way to send it", and it "wasnt up to his standard". I told him where to go, actually expecting me to refund him half, and have him own a Bungie signed Halo reach poster for £50! So for the first time ever in 8 years of being on ebay, he left me full negative feedback! Fucking asshole, i would punch him in the face repeatedly if i ever seen him.

So i was bumme dout about that, and to be honest not looking forward to the updates, but when it hit... man it was like Shenmue 3 all over again! When i seen Monaco and LA dinners announced i freaked the fuck out and hit it straight away. Even before making the update topics here as the news hadnt broke. I happily chose Monaco because its closer to me and will help with the cost of the trip. Plus after years of discussing Cedric and Shibuya Productions, i knew thats where they were based, and then i thought of how Yu was confirmed to appear at the Magic Monaco convention in 2016 to preview Shenmue 3! I also thought about meeting David Deville at it, and was thinking about asking him to attend with me, but he is already going to Japan with Matt, plus my friend has now shown interest in going, which he can rightfully do since he has backed me with a large amount of my pledge.

So now the dust has settled i am now buzzing and cannot wait to meet Yu. As some of you have said, for me personally it is literally life changing. It means i will now not be emigrating to Australia in November as planned, and i will be focusing my life on gaming. More so than i have ever done. Its more than just a hobby. Its a passion, and you only live once. Why should i not embrace my love for the gaming industry. Now i have no major outgoings, i can focus on buying a lot more games, and developing opinions and perhaps writing some articles and reviews etc. I would say also, since i have a lot of time, and 2 jobs, i can save up and possibly do the Shenmue pilgrimage to China and Japan sometime in 2017!

So thanks for all the love guys, it truely is felt and appreciated! :heart: :heart: :heart:

http://i.imgur.com/PZDaNhg.jpg

Hey everyone, my brother and I decided to contribute $20,000 for the making of Shenmue III. We spent many hours thinking about whether this is a good or bad decision. We spent $10,000 in 2012 to get our school off the ground and that went a long way. Because of our initial $10,000 pledge, the school received an amazing amount of attention in China, social media and gaming websites. I'll reiterate, We are not wealthy! This was a hard decision. We could have given $20,000 directly to building the school and it's programs but we feel that this pledge will lead to more exposure and support than what we could do through other mediums.

For those who don't know our school yet. We are called The "V.E.T. Program" (Volunteer English Teacher). You can find us on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/VolunteerEnglishTeacher?fref=ts&ref=br_tf We teach children and young adults English to help in their educational and career pursuits. Many of these kids come from small villages in the Guilin area and may not have an opportunity to learn elsewhere. You can go to the "about" section on the Facebook page to learn more.

We really need help in reaching our goals. We would love for you to like us on Facebook. We will eventually look outside ourselves and setup a way for donations to be made but we didn't want to distract from the Kick Starter or be overbearing donation hunters.

We decided to make the second $10,000 pledge a character in the game. We don't want to be a character attacking Ryo though. We are going to try and ask Yu Suzuki to let us have one of our Volunteer Chinese teaching assistants be a character in one of the villages. They deserve to be recognized for their hard work. They are volunteers and many of them come from poor rice farms.

We are also hoping that since we will be listed in the credits as a special sponsor that it can have our school with a logo and a website rather than our names.

I don't think any of this would be asking too much. I think it would help get attention to the school. We would love any assistance in helping us achieve this. We also would love to have Yu Suzuki come to the school some day but we won't don't want to be greedy.

Please, help our little school!
http://i.imgur.com/GS7Iwrq.jpg

someone from a gaming publication or website should make an article about this. not only would it would be great PR for the campaign, it would raise publicity for both shenmue and the school.

and i really can't see Suzuki refusing your requests in regards to the type of NPC you become or of having your school mentioned in the credits.

i wouldn't be surprised if he actually offered you and your school a much more elaborate cameo! (a little school house in Bailu village or something)

yu suzuki visiting your school is also great. heck, someone could produce a really good documentary about this and film the whole thing.

I hope no one backs it, I feel it dosent fit the taste of Shenmue, If it was $5k and your face on the NPC stood next to the lucky hit board I guess it would be better, but I dont know if the complication is from the 3D imaging face scan technique they have to use to apply it to a model.

A better one would be $4k a miniature desktop real life lucky hit board replica from shenmue 2

A full size one would cost too much and shipping would increase

Submitting your own art with the discretion of the art director is cool, but may lead to problems later on if you cant agree on what to submit and you want your $4k back...
the fact no one is going for it shows they need to change it as there is no interest as is.

Even if small, it's effecting the campaign in some way. People love to think they're on the inside of information, the ignorant believe in conspiracy theorist ramblings that 2+2=5, throw them a bone and they'll go after it. The second the mainstream gets a hold of information like this, they think they know better and see it as another major corporation trying to screw them. Again, even if small, every bit counts and this is definitely a negative that we don't need. The point that it's still occurring is baffling.

Yes do tweet at Justin Davis and anyone else in the IGN staff to run a proper article.
Nobody in that podcast circle could even correct Justin Davis when he said what he said. They just feed off each others conjecture.

Edit: Just did it.
Ironic his name is @errorjustin

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/30/ab2e1d87265baed34fd7b9f4be4659b2.jpg

Thanks everyone. It would be great to see a small school in one of the villages but I'm not having any expectations for what Yu would do. I don't want to make an assumption that we deserve special treatment simply because we gave money.. I'll ask him for these favors and if he says no that will be the end of it.

All we really want is to see the school grow and be able to turn it into something great. We are a non profit and we have a lot of needs at the moment. We get some help from the local college with books and rooms to teach but we would love to build a new headquarters where we have our own classrooms. With the recent attention we are getting in China it will help a lot. We want to recreate locations in Shenmue. My brother joked that he would call the living quarters the Come Over Guest House and have a front desk with a small fan and radio where he can tell people that they need to pay before they leave.

I've been a teacher in Japan for 7 years, and I saw your other post a couple of weeks ago. I would love to visit your school. It would be a great reason to visit Guilin too. I've always been interested in going to China, but I was always too intimidated because I don't know anybody there.
Anyway, I was gonna pm you, but I procrastinated and the half written draft has been sitting there for a while :D
I'll try to get around to it asap.

Please, let me know TB (and AXM).

We would love to have experienced teachers. Even if you don't know the language we still need assistants. And if you don't want to do that, you are still invited to come by. I'd love to meet fellow Shenmue Fans. We also would love to show you around.

Thanks for the like Miles P. Which one were you? I'll add you as a friend though, I don't use Facebook as much as my brother.

Limited edtion Shenmue PS4 + physical PS4 copy would rake in hundreds of thousands imo. Assuming they'd ship the PS4 before 2017, that is. So many Shenmue fans will be getting PS4s for the game anyway.

My personal hope is that they add a $750 tier that is a Limited edition Shenmue PS4 + the $500 tier rewards. That'd be perfect.

I've been a teacher in Japan for 7 years, and I saw your other post a couple of weeks ago. I would love to visit your school. It would be a great reason to visit Guilin too. I've always been interested in going to China, but I was always too intimidated because I don't know anybody there.
Anyway, I was gonna pm you, but I procrastinated and the half written draft has been sitting there for a while :D
I'll try to get around to it asap.

This is absolutely remarkable. Should be front-page news, really. What a generous gift from such an unlikely and worthy source. It goes to show how significant the Shenmue phenomenon has been in mostly unappreciated ways. I think it can indeed inspire more returns to your school than you donated. I am a new teacher this year, but would love to help out any way I can one day.

Absolutely outstanding! Thank you for everything you do, not just for the Kickstarter but for those wonderful children in Guilin! I have re-tweeted the Dojo's tweet of this and have posted up a front page article!

http://i.imgur.com/UDMN8px.png

The owners of the V.E.T 'Volunteer English Teacher' school in Guilin, China, have donated a substantial amount of funds to the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter. The school teaches children and young adults the English language which will help them in their educational and career pursuits. Please read the entire post by one of the school's owners ( wdrpgwd ) which details more about the school, the work they do and the help they need - as well as the reasoning behind their decision to pledge $20,000 to the Kickstarter.

Links & Hashtags: #SaveShenmue #10milliontoShenmue3
Volunteer English Teacher Facebook Page | Shenmue 3 Kickstarter | Forum Discussion | News Archive

I helped clean up the OP at the NeoGAF Kickstarter topic. It's much more simple and concise now.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1063771

This is amazing! I'll be sure to write up an article on my SEGA Nerds site and Gamnesia site to get the word out there.

Yep, thanks again to everyone for the support. It still hasnt sunk in, never mind Shenmue 3, the Kickstarter, what the next 3 years will holf for us all. Its just an insane thought that a month ago, we were just as we have been for the past 14 years.

Its just going to be such an honour. I get nervous at the thought of it.

Wish he talked about the series or his take on it some.

I don't follow Nintendo much, but I'm sure it would have helped; XBOX One doubly so.

While I have my reservations about the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter, which is still not even halfway towards a "true open world," folks have thrown money at it with aplomb. Over the weekend, perhaps spurred by a false sense of freedom (or apologies for the women's world cup result), Shenmue 3 passed Torment: Tides of Numenera ($4.2M) to become the second most funded video game on Kickstarter.

First is the recent Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night ($5.5M), which Shenmue 3 ($4.4M) could reach in the next 11 days in its campaign, though that seems unlikely.

Even doubters are acknowledging Shenmue 3's hype.

Source: Destructoid
http://i.imgur.com/Vjyyiv5.png

I don't understand how someone with so much to stay and who clearly thinks he's really smart has no idea what he's talking about.

They left a freelance in charge of their site who created a negative clickbait article that tried to discredit the Shenmue Kickstarter. That's just sheer incompetence. And then they take the reins back and offer "sympathy" to Shenmue fans? Fuck sympathy, how about support?

Looks like the story is starting to gain some momentum! I'm glad this caught his attention.

https://twitter.com/CedricBiscay/status ... 9781383168

Thank you everyone for the kind words.

We have received an unimaginable amount of press over this. Most good, some bad. There are some places that seem to think we took food from the mouths of the kids and gave the money instead to the game.

http://n4g.com/news/1754367/chinese-school-for-underprivileged-kids-pledges-20-000-to-shenmue-3-kickstarter

We were made aware of this place a few minutes ago. My brother decided to respond to these people.. This is just one of several places giving us bad press.

All the outside money we receive goes to the kids. All advertising costs come from my brother and I. We have spent plenty of money in advertising over the years but none has ever got us the exposure we have received now. All the advertising we did in the past only got to western parts of China, now we have been getting attention not just in ALL of China, but globally. The best part is the money we spent didn't go to some large marketing corporation but to Shenmue and dinner with Y'S. It was the smartest decision we ever made.

We have been getting ton's of gaming sites in China trying to interview us. We have been on the news in Guilin (5M people). Even Eurogamer.net posted our story on Twitter a few minutes ago.

https://twitter.com/eurogamer

I'm having a hard time with the criticism, frankly. I have only had the intention of helping the school. I wish people would look at this and think about giving of their time and energy to helping others but some people only live to hate and criticize. If people are thinking we are spending our money unwisely, let's hear what they are doing to help the world and what better ways they are spending their money on charity...