Interesting emails July 16
First off there is a Famitsu article claiming that AM2 is not working on Shenmue III or has no plans for it yet. On to the meat of the update, I got an interesting email from someone who does not want to be identified. Since there is a lack of news this seemed like something interesting to read be it true or not. ~HellRaiser~
Hey there, ok, where do I start. I worked at Sega of Germany (SOE German HQ, closed now) at the localization department. we usually made plans for language localization, packaging and stuff... I got fired when they closed the German Dep.... so I guess it's ok when I talk about some stuff here... Once in a while we had visitors from Sega of America, or even Sega of Japan. About a year ago, we had a few people over from AM2&3, I think they went to London and were invited by Sega of Europe, I suppose for promotional stuff or something. However, i got to talk to one guy on the way back to the Airport. His english was fluent, quite exceptional for a Japanese software developer... lol. So, being an avid Shenmue fan, this was the topic. Of course, I wanted to know about Shenmues future after pt. II, as the Dreamcast death was on everyone's lips at that time. At first he laughed, like he can't tell, or tell ME.
However, after he understood what kind of a Shenmue freak I am, and that I know the characters, Shenmues history and stuff, he kind of warmed up, and began to talk Shenmue. He confirmed that Shenmue is supposed to have 16 Chapters, but the Story finds a rather "satisfying" (but not final) end after Chapter 9 or 10, he did not remember. And here comes the meat. He told me that the storyline, the characters, the dialogue and like 80% of the locations (I tried to get some info about Tibet, no luck) until Chapter 10 (or 9) are actually finished. Most of the stuff is already prerendered in the current engine, though it is of course not polished, it basically consists of placeholder textures/animations from Shenmue I&II. Of course he did not reveal a damn thing about how it goes on, he only smiled when i mentioned our every day discussions about Baihu, Lan Di, Ziming and so on... but still, he revealed that Suzuki had the story for Shenmue finished for years, the Saturn Shenmue would prove that, as they had progressed until Chapter 5 in pre-renderings (btw, he mentioned that it still had VF Characters back then). He got a little uncomfortable talking about Yu Suzuki, I felt he kind of said more then he had planned to. Though, he said that no one knows when, if, and on what system the following chapters would appear. He said that it depends on how the sales go, how Sega would support AM2, and how much Sega would believe in Shenmue. Although the basics are finished, the most expensive part of Shenmue is the scripting, dubbing and debugging, along with the research & creation of textures (cant remember exactly), and only a successful Sega, AM2 and Shenmue II would allow them to invest in a third installment (note: at that time, Sega was facing hard times due to the DC's death, it looks a LOT brighter now).
Finally, he told me that Suzuki, and the greater part of AM2 take Shenmue very personal, and as long as there's a possibility, they will try to tell the story of Shenmue, he laughed and said in the worst case, they will have to do (he laughed) "10 more arcade driving games" (he pretended to steer with a wheel very hysteric and waved his head, lol) before they saved enough money to continue on Shenmue. That is about it, we talked about misc. other stuff while we approached the Airport. When he checked in and said goodbye, he pointed at a Canadian counter and said "Canada is a nice country" and smiled.
This is straight from HR at the old Shenmue Dojo. I came across it while looking through the Dojo's archive that Ryudo posted in SpringChick's thread in GD. Some interesting stuff in this email, if any of it is true.
