SEGA currently "investigating" making Shenmue 1/2 HD happen

[Kiske]

Basically, some of you guys were expecting Shenmue HD to be announced during a weekly PR video from Sega_Europe?





SEGA Europe statement is a good start... They say they want to do the remasters and want to do them right.

I'm sure they are not telling us everything, which by the way, makes sense (As pointed out by David Deville, "lots of stuff going on in the background").

[Testament]

Investigating what?

1. Sega is a business. You need to remember that. They owe us nothing.
2. Shenmue is:
a. Loaded with licensed products.
b. Loaded with voice acting.
c. In a business sense, an abject failure in the past.

It's 100% reasonable (and should be expected) that Sega would need to look at this properly; they need to decide if they're going to re-new the licenses ($$$) or replace them with dummy ones, re-open past contracts with, hell, let's say a metric "fuckton" (to put it scientifically) of voice actors ($$$), consider the cost of porting it, etc., and weight that against the amount of prospective money they could even make on it, all with the "this failed once" in the back of their business-tuned minds.

[FlagshipFighter]

I would prefer an announcement to be officially made after a reasonable amount of progress has been made such as the latter half of development. This is because a lot of the excitement fizzles out between time announced until it is released for the new audience it is trying to reach out to.

Also to create the necessary impact it needs to be at E3 where both media and consumers are alert to new announcements. Really has to be fast, effective and not let the honeymoon period drop off, announcement this E3 with a release date maybe 6-8 months prior to Shemnue 3 would be ideal I think.

Shenmue as a franchise needs to expand its fanbase so it no longer gets asked by the majority "what is all the fuss about?".

[Batosai]

1. Sega is a business. You need to remember that. They owe us nothing.
2. Shenmue is:
a. Loaded with licensed products.
b. Loaded with voice acting.
c. In a business sense, an abject failure in the past.

Shenmue has always been a difficult project when looking at the numbers. But has Sega really achieved success as a business doing what its doing at the moment? Personally i believe a dedicated fanbase will help the bottom line in future ventures and recent acknowledgements of their own failures seems to suggest they are feeling the loss of such a fanbase. Besides i'm sure its costing Sega money to have to keep responding to us nagging fans

As for Shenmue remaster i don't think renaming product placement is an issue, its more voice acting and game engine components but if its been in the pipeline for quite some time its unclear as to how much of this has been accomplished or not, it might not be the monumental task it seems. Also its failure was kind of in part due to the platforms userbase even though it was expensive to make. It just needs a kickstart (no pun intended, honest!) to be relevant in the modern era, i mean the games continued support is not just a knee-jerk emotional response it was quite impressive on a technical and innovative level which I think that can be conveyed if done right.

[dnlandi]

i believe sega will release shenmue 1 & 2 hd next year just before the release of shenmue 3 and maybe the will announce at tgs or e3 next year

[Kiske]

From a technical point of view, voice acting in Shenmue 1 & 2 is good enough and I'm pretty sure most of the fans wouldn't the original voice acting to be touched for the remasters.

Personally, I really hope they will announce (if this ever happens) the remasters this year.

TGS or PSX would still be perfect for a release date Q1 or Q2 2017.

Release them before Shenmue 3 or at the very last, at the same time as Shenmue 3 is essential (imo).

[Telekill]

I'm in agreement with Kiske. I'm pretty sure that if it's going to happen that it's been in the process for a few months at least. This announcement means only one thing to me... take it at face value that they are investigating ways to get around some of the hang-ups, whatever they may be. If you read to much into it, you'll probably be let down.

Those asking for added extras... beyond resolution changes making it widescreen and HD... I wouldn't expect anything added. They won't add in new voice overs. They won't add in the Saturn version to play through. They won't add in anything beyond matching resolutions. I don't even expect 60fps if the first two games are ever released. At most, I expect the release to be HD, in widescreen, with English and Japanese subtitles and voice over options from the original releases. Regardless that Sony requires trophies, I would doubt trophies will be added. Sony may allow an exception to help boost sales of the third game.

As mentioned by others, releasing the game either before or at the time the third game releases would make the most sense, but as we're all aware, Sega doesn't like to make sense to their fans. **looking at you Sonic warewolf*

[Kiske]

Let's make a list of brands in Shenmue 1 & 2:

• Case Logic (I don't remember / am not sure right know where this is used, but it's in my notes. Maybe the brand of Ryo's bag?)
• Coca-Cola (vending machines)
• Hitachi (cassette player in Ren's Hideout, only in Shenmue II)
• Mitsui Sumitomo Bank (bank passbook [related video], only in Shenmue I)
• Sapporo (vending machines, only in Shenmue II)
• Timex (watches, both in Ryo's hand and in his room, at least)
• Zippo (lighters, only in Shenmue II)

What else?

I've heard that (especially in Japan) you need permission to advertise/feature a brand in your works. From SEGA's words, that Shenmue is totally immersive and need to retain that real world lifelike feeling (by featuring these real world brands), it's an issue to get the permission to do so.

However (if that's the case), how much of an issue it is? Which are the complexities? How much time it is needed? Personally, I don't believe it's a Gordian knot!

[Mr357]

Let's make a list of brands in Shenmue 1 & 2:

• Case Logic (I don't remember / am not sure right know where this is used, but it's in my notes. Maybe the brand of Ryo's bag?)
• Coca-Cola (vending machines)
• Hitachi (cassette player in Ren's Hideout, only in Shenmue II)
• Mitsui Sumitomo Bank (bank passbook [related video], only in Shenmue I)
• Sapporo (vending machines, only in Shenmue II)
• Timex (watches, both in Ryo's hand and in his room, at least)
• Zippo (lighters, only in Shenmue II)

What else?

I've heard that (especially in Japan) you need permission to advertise/feature a brand in your works. From SEGA's words, that Shenmue is totally immersive and need to retain that real world lifelike feeling (by featuring these real world brands), it's an issue to get the permission to do so.

However (if that's the case), how much of an issue it is? Which are the complexities? How much time it is needed? Personally, I don't believe it's a Gordian knot!

Yes, his bag has the Case Logic branding on it, although I'm not sure where.

[Ziming]

phpBB [video]

[fittersau]

A nice thing to note, most mainstream gaming sites aren't using the "announcement" to tease or troll Shenmue fans for once.

[ShenGCH]

Let's make a list of brands in Shenmue 1 & 2:

• Case Logic (I don't remember / am not sure right know where this is used, but it's in my notes. Maybe the brand of Ryo's bag?)
• Coca-Cola (vending machines)
• Hitachi (cassette player in Ren's Hideout, only in Shenmue II)
• Mitsui Sumitomo Bank (bank passbook [related video], only in Shenmue I)
• Sapporo (vending machines, only in Shenmue II)
• Timex (watches, both in Ryo's hand and in his room, at least)
• Zippo (lighters, only in Shenmue II)

What else?

I've heard that (especially in Japan) you need permission to advertise/feature a brand in your works. From SEGA's words, that Shenmue is totally immersive and need to retain that real world lifelike feeling (by featuring these real world brands), it's an issue to get the permission to do so.

However (if that's the case), how much of an issue it is? Which are the complexities? How much time it is needed? Personally, I don't believe it's a Gordian knot!

According to the end credits of both games, these are the brands featured in each:

Shenmue (link to correct time in video)

- Timex
- Case Logic
- Sumitomo Bank
- Coca-Cola (present only in the Japanese version)

Shenmue II (link to correct time in video)

- Sapporo Soft Drinks
- Timex
- Zippo
- Hitachi

Funny - I could have sworn there were more...

[killthesagabeforeitkillsu]

All the official brands can be replaced by "Jet Colas".
The voice acting is already done, at best you need to give a percentage of the profits back to the voice actors, but they don't hold the rights of their performance.

SEGA is indeed a business, a horrible one. They rather continue shitting out mediocre sonics, than rebuild their other forgotten franchises.

[FlagshipFighter]

^ Agreed, I don’t know why voice acting is even mentioned as a point of contention.
The actors were paid 15 years ago, and all of that quality [& questionable quality] voice acting is already owned by Sega.

Chalk up Sega’s cautiousness to licensing issues and fear of financial failure.
(Though, realistically, it wouldn’t exactly take a big investment to digitally release a bare-bones HD port full of Jet-Colas. I hope/ assume Sega has grander plans in mind ;) )

[Esppiral]

With all the resolution debate madness lately and the 4k debate....

PS4 neither Xbox One shouldn't struggle to run a direct port of Shenmue I & II at 4k, Sega should tweak some world and hud textures and make it widescreen, do a direct port, advertise it as first 4k console game ever.

Profit.