Shenmue Dojo

Nahovil wrote: England belongs to Europe?

Other way around, buddy ;)

drunkensailor wrote:

ConanTheKing wrote: Wait America didn't get Shenmue II on the Dreamcast? Eh!?

That does seem strange. What's worse is the Dreamcast was a dying console and while the original Xbox was a success it didn't sell nearly enough as the Playstation 2. If only SEGA released it on the Playstation 2, imagine that, it would have sold a lot more and generally the Playstation crowd are usually more receptive of these types of titles.

SEGA really messed up the chances this franchise had.

the original xbox was not a success at all

Eh, that makes it even worse then. SEGA made some really bad choices, it reminds me of the NeoGAF article about how some internal feud over game engine rights led to the destruction of Sonic X-treme for the Saturn. Then there is also the Mega Drive (Genesis) attachments, CD and 32x.

I love SEGA, but with some of the decisions they made it's hardly surprising that things went the way they did for both them and their franchises.

ConanTheKing wrote:

drunkensailor wrote:

ConanTheKing wrote: Wait America didn't get Shenmue II on the Dreamcast? Eh!?

That does seem strange. What's worse is the Dreamcast was a dying console and while the original Xbox was a success it didn't sell nearly enough as the Playstation 2. If only SEGA released it on the Playstation 2, imagine that, it would have sold a lot more and generally the Playstation crowd are usually more receptive of these types of titles.

SEGA really messed up the chances this franchise had.

the original xbox was not a success at all

Eh, that makes it even worse then. SEGA made some really bad choices, it reminds me of the NeoGAF article about how some internal feud over game engine rights led to the destruction of Sonic X-treme for the Saturn. Then there is also the Mega Drive (Genesis) attachments, CD and 32x.

I love SEGA, but with some of the decisions they made it's hardly surprising that things went the way they did for both them and their franchises.

They aren't any better now. I understand they are making a sequel to the worst ever selling Sonic game, Sonic Boom

I seriously think after the death of Isao Okawa in 2001, it was the end of the Sega we all knew and loved. This incredible man invested a lot of his personal wealth to keep Sega the Sega we all cherished and to ensure the Dreamcast even saw the light of day. Everything just fell apart after he passed away.

ConanTheKing wrote: Wait America didn't get Shenmue II on the Dreamcast? Eh!?

That does seem strange. What's worse is the Dreamcast was a dying console and while the original Xbox was a success it didn't sell nearly enough as the Playstation 2. If only SEGA released it on the Playstation 2, imagine that, it would have sold a lot more and generally the Playstation crowd are usually more receptive of these types of titles.

SEGA really messed up the chances this franchise had.

Yeah I imagine the game running at laughable resolutions, plenty of jaggies and with N64's texture quality, thank god it never released on that system.

Esppiral wrote:

ConanTheKing wrote: Wait America didn't get Shenmue II on the Dreamcast? Eh!?

That does seem strange. What's worse is the Dreamcast was a dying console and while the original Xbox was a success it didn't sell nearly enough as the Playstation 2. If only SEGA released it on the Playstation 2, imagine that, it would have sold a lot more and generally the Playstation crowd are usually more receptive of these types of titles.

SEGA really messed up the chances this franchise had.

Yeah I imagine the game running at laughable resolutions, plenty of jaggies and with N64's texture quality, thank god it never released on that system.

There were some lovely games on the Playstation 2 however such as Metal Gear Solid 3 or God Of War II. Xbox was technically superior in the graphics department sure, but the Playstation 2 overshadowed all competition and was generally a better home for Japanese games than the competing platforms. It's why Shenmue 3, The Last Guardian and Final Fantasy VII Remake were all shown off on the PS4 ;)

The Last Guardian is a first party game, ( in hell development since ancient times) Final Fantasy VII is timed exclusive, and I will remain silent about what I think about Sony and the Shenmue 3 announcement...

Mgs3 and GOW are great examples of games running at very low resolutions ( 512x224 & 512X480) and poor texture quality, with a great art direction.

Anyway all this talk is offtopic and not related to Shenmue.

The reason Shenmue came to XBox rather than Playstation 2 is most likely to the fact that the XBox was closer to the Dreamcast and Sega was already partnered to Microsoft for developing the DC.

Microsoft was heavily involved in developing the Dreamcast, because they wanted a console to support Windows and DirectX. Thats why you have that "Windows CE" logo infront of your Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast was basicly the very first (Direct)X-Box.

If the DC had more success, the Xbox may have never existed. Microsoft had been forced to make a console if they wanted their software to survive on the console market - and so they did.

Sega also was involved with the developement of the Xbox. At some point there were even plans for the Xbox to be able to play Dreamcast games. More on that: http://segaretro.org/Xbox

you could even argue that the release wasn't even complete without the inclusion of English dubbed voice acting.

More like the U.S. Audience got f*cked because they didn't get to play the game with the superior original voices.

Esppiral wrote: The Last Guardian is a first party game, ( in hell development since ancient times) Final Fantasy VII is timed exclusive, and I will remain silent about what I think about Sony and the Shenmue 3 announcement...

Mgs3 and GOW are great examples of games running at very low resolutions ( 512x224 & 512X480) and poor texture quality, with a great art direction.

Anyway all this talk is offtopic and not related to Shenmue.

The fact that The Last Guardian is a full exclusive and FF7 remake is a timed exclusive just further demonstrates my point. It's quite related to Shenmue really, I am expressing my opinion that the original Xbox was the wrong console to release Shenmue II on. Xbox was maybe more well known for making online console gaming what it is today with games like Halo 2 but a lot of the really story driven experiences (Especially the Japanese ones such as Ico or Final Fantasy X) were on the Playstation 2.

Shenmue 2's poor sales could be chalked up to being released on two poorly selling consoles and not the commonly held belief that people won't like that sort of game. That's why I am really glad Shenmue comes to Playstation 4 these days where it continues that trend of Japanese games like Toukiden which attracts people that like Japanese games.

ShinChuck wrote:

They were to the point of even advertising Shenmue II's NA Dreamcast release, and then, relatively shortly before it happened, the rug was pulled out from under NA fans.

http://spong.com/article/2358/Shenmue-2-and-Phantasy-Star-Announced-for-Xbox-as-US-Dreamcast-Shenmue-2-is-Cancelled

http://archive.thegia.com/dc/shmu2/shmu2.html

A friend of mine and I were discussing this several months ago. I remember being heartbroken, having just seen banners on GameFAQs advertising it, and when he heard the news, he stomped over to his wall and tore down an advertisement he had hung that was marketing the US release for DC.

It was a rough time for SEGA fans. Dreamcast was on its way out, SEGA was going third party, and barely more than a month before release, it was announced we weren't getting Shenmue II for another year at least, and on a different system entirely. It was an all-time low for Dreamcast fans. Fun times, fun times!

Yeah, fun times. For sure. Prior to this I had never been an importer of games. Fortunately, one of my best friends had imported a Japanese Dreamcast before it was released in the US. He had a few games for it, but he eventually got a US Dreamcast as well (and he introduced me to the original Shenmue). At any rate, the fact that HE imported a Japanese Dreamcast and a few Japanese market games inspired me to feel that it wouldn't be too hard/sketchy to import the European version of Shenmue II, and I ordered it and a boot disc as soon as I knew it wasn't coming to the US. I absolutely despise the PAL cases, they are a pain to open. But I suppose the slipcover helps make up for it.

Esppiral wrote:Yeah I imagine the game running at laughable resolutions, plenty of jaggies and with N64's texture quality, thank god it never released on that system.

Yeah but I can also imagine it selling a couple million units and getting a Shenmue III and IV in the enormous PS2 userbase that was going to grow afterwards, and in retrospect I also think it was a mistake.

But at the time Xbox seemed like home of the most and more high profile Sega games from the DC era. They also got Jet Set Radio and Panzer Dragoon, while it looked like PS2 only got the weird games like Rez and Space Channel, and Nintendo the Sonic games. Then after that first batch things started to change, with Virtua Fighter 4 and Shinobi and the likes coming to PS2 first, but maybe that was too late for Shenmue.

And onto the original topic, I guess maybe the original Xbox hadn't sold that well in Europe as to justify the loss of the Dreamcast Shenmue II sales, or for Microsoft to spend more money to extend the exclusivity here. The Xbox line of consoles has always been much more succesful in the US (and the UK, which is not Europe it seems :-P) than in continental Europe were Sony has reigned plenty...(and even Nintendo seems more prominent)

nintendo isn't and in fact never was really popular in continental europe either save for some exceptions. in fact uk and mainland europe have very similar gaming tastes and history. the original xbox wasn't a sucess in uk either. far from it. the 360 was, although that one also sold well initially in mainland europe

It all has to do with a certain scumbag named Peter Moore, who sold out both Sega and the NA release of Shenmue 2, to net his scumbag self a job at MS(That evil prick is now the CEO of EA, the root of all evil, so go figure sigh).

Zoltor wrote: It all has to do with a certain scumbag named Peter Moore, who sold out both Sega and the NA release of Shenmue 2, to net his scumbag self a job at MS(That evil prick is now the CEO of EA, the root of all evil, so go figure sigh).

quoted for truth