Random Shenmue III Thoughts

[spud1897]

We don't really know in what point of the development they are, if we had to judge based on what we've seen so far, the game wouldn't see the light of day till 2020, but we do know according to Cedric and several people who played the game they are far more advanced than we think. Maybe they get in time for e3 with a trailer with Japanese voices.

They must be very advanced having in mind the game is supposed to be released this year. I can't imagine Suzuki appearing in another video saying the game is going to be delayed again, he must have planned everything to not announce another delay.

Not knowing where development is has caused panic among lots of us.

As you say with what Cedric etc have been tweeting it would be suggested they are further along than we know. How far.... no idea. Voice over for the English Dub is happening at the end of May (if they stick to the schedule) and who says they haven't voiced some of the Japanese dub already? E3 with Japanese voices would in my eye be great.

I reckon we get one more Kickstarter update before E3 & then hopefully a big E3 reveal with Shenmue HD... wouldn't that be something.

[Kiske]

When you compare with other big killer-apps, we're probably lucky.

I've read that GTA VI could arrive in 2022 (?????) , and there's still no images, only rumors. Personnally, i've been waiting for this game for so many years already.

Red Dead Redemption 2...We know the release date but there's not a lot of informations also about the game, we had 2 trailers only.

And the FF7 remake...We don't know a lot of things too about this big game.

Deep Silver promised to give us some informations soon, i hope to see a trailer for sure also, but we have to be patient and trust Suzuki San.

[Valascaziel]

I'm okay to continue being patient. I still expect radio silence til May, to be honest. They caught some(deserved) criticism for their MAGIC showing, so I expect the next time it turns up to be ready for an unveiling.

I still hold out hope it will be at E3, as were due for some major updates on those 2015 titles. If it doesn't that's all right, but I think any shot of the 2018 release hinges on that, if at all. It's a guaranteed 2019 to me if it misses E3, but again I'm okay with that and even expect it.

[Spaghetti]

Panic is kind of a strong word. I'm not sure any of us could look at the reams of visual and anecdotal evidence of the team pulling ridiculous hours, and not think in some way it's paying off.

Could we see more of development? Ehhhh, perhaps. I'm fairly sympathetic to them wanting to just beaver away at it, mostly in private - especially at this point where focus is critical and a proper reveal is basically imminent. We've already seen far more of the game than we would have if it was traditionally publisher funded, so I don't really buy the "backers deserve X, Y, Z" argument either.

We've had our look behind the curtain, but if you backed for the behind-the-scenes rather than the final product; you backed for the wrong reason.

Not that it matters a bunch right now. We're just a mere few months away from a lot more information, I think.

[Hazuki00]

It's a guaranteed 2019 to me if it misses E3, but again I'm okay with that and even expect it.

Missing E3 don't really need to mean it's gonna be delayed to 2019, I can't see why this would be like this. Maybe as Spags said it's a too much big scenery to show it and it'd get lost among many good games. Maybe it could be presented at gamescom again or even at psx and it still be in time for this year. We can only speculate about it unfortunately.

What I would like is they to inform us in what part of the process they are right now, talk about next steps to accomplish, etc. That would relieve everyone.

[Kiske]

The burden of being a crowdfunded project is definitely putting a lot of pressure onto the team.
It's a shame because what they need the most is serenity and trust. As Pollito Diablo said, we are lucky compared to plenty of other "conventional" projects because we have seen way more from behind the scenes that gamers usually see from games under development. And as Spaghetti points out, we know for a fact from various interviews and comments from both Yu Suzuki and his entourage that the whole team is working 7 days a week in order to deliver what we have all dreamed of for 14 years before it finally became real.

I'm sure though that for most of the people, backers and fans, having the feeling that we don't know enough about what is going on with the development fuels an irrational fear that things may be going wrong. I do understand that feeling, but we need to keep calm and trust Yu.

(Should do a t-shirt or a mug with that)

[Sappharad]

When you compare with other big killer-apps, we're probably lucky.

I've read that GTA VI could arrive in 2022 (?????) , and there's still no images, only rumors. Personnally, i've been waiting for this game for so many years already.

Red Dead Redemption 2...We know the release date but there's not a lot of informations also about the game, we had 2 trailers only.

And the FF7 remake...We don't know a lot of things too about this big game.

Deep Silver promised to give us some informations soon, i hope to see a trailer for sure also, but we have to be patient and trust Suzuki San.

GTA - Nothing to worry about there, most of their team is busy with RDR2 right now so they probably won't even announce anything until after that's done and out. FF7 remake isn't happening until late 2019. Square Enix wanted to focus on finishing & promoting Kingdom Hearts 3 for release later this year.

Big titles in the 2nd half of 2018 will probably be Kingdom Hearts 3, Spiderman, Spyro Reignited, Super Smash Bros. (At least, those are the first that come to mind right now) Others have mentioned multiple times that it doesn't matter much, there will always be other large titles coming out in the same span of time. At the moment though, I don't really feel like there's a huge overlap in big titles in similar genres near the end of this year or early next year.

I think the team is heading in the right direction, despite their lack of open communication.

[Hyo Razuki]

Yeah, big releases in the second half of this year will be Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us 2, Spiederman, Kingdom Hearts 3 and maybe Spyro, although I'm not sure how big of a franchise Spyro is.

But if you want to avoid big releases it's gonna be hard to find a good release date on PS4. Next year, the PS4 will have titles like Death Stranding and Final Fantasy 7 remake coming. And probably a bunch of other great games I can't think of right now.

I think Yu shouldn't waste too much time on that. There's always gonna be some bigger title releasing just before S3 or just after. That's what PS4 is like.

[Valascaziel]

Spyro has massive nostalgic appeal and you didnt see much of a grassroots movement for it's revival until the success of Crash Bandicoot's remaster.

The reception to its announcement has been very positive(from what I have seen) and if anything, it really helps justify the case for Shenmue HD far more these days. While it is probably wishful thinking for SEGA to do anything other than a straightforward release upscaled to 1080/4k, it would be nice if the reason we haven't seen it is because they are putting that same effort as Crash and Spyro's new visual look.

On the topic, it is still possible Shenmue 3 could survive a release in a crowded 2018 window. We shall see, but I still feel a Q1 or Q2 2019 is increasingly more likely but we have to remain hopeful.

[Hyo Razuki]

Well yeah, my point basically was that there's no use to trying to avoid big releases because you'll always have to compete against some big releases on PS4. If you shy away from releasing the game because Red Dead Redemption 2 is releasing in the same time window you don't win much because after that, Death Stranding and FF7 Remake will be coming.

There's nothing you can do about it. S3 is on PS4, not Xbox One. You always have a steady stream of high profile releases on PS4.

S3 will have to find its audience in a very competitive and crowded market of tons of high quality games on PS4. But with like 70 million users, I think there's a good chance it will. Plus, there's also the Steam market which can always be very welcoming to niche titles like this.

[Pollito Diablo]

That's so true, just imagine the beginning of 2017, it was a real festival, between January and April 2017, we had Tales of Berseria, Yakuza 0, Gravity Rush 2, RE7, Horizon Zero, Nioh, For Honor, Ys Origin, Zelda, Mass Effect Andromeda, Nier Automata, Persona 5...

It was not negative, all these great games had good sales.

And we always complain finally, when there's no games, we complain, if too many great games are released in same time, we complain also .

[Hyo Razuki]

Well, Mass Effect Andromeda was a complete disaster quality-wise, with tons of bugs which have become stuff of legend (My face is tired of everything) and boring, empty open world gameplay. It may have sold ok for a normal game but for the Mass Effect franchise, sales figures were abysmal and led to its studio, Bioware Montreal, being closed down. Also it may well have been the nail in the coffin for the Mass Effect series.

But other than that, Persona 5 and Nier Automata are good examples of games performing far better than their publishers would have expected them to, even though they both came out at a very crowded time in the market.

But thinking back... Holy cow, what a great year for (console) gaming 2017 was! The first quarter of 2018 has been a lot more "laid back" compared to 2017 but I'm sure there are a lot of great thing still coming this year.

Speaking of 2017, I still haven't started playing Nier Automata yet. I bought it two months ago but I had a bunch of other stuff to finish first. And with Yakuza 6 presumably coming out later this month, I won't get around to it anytime soon. With me being a massive Yakuza fan, Yakuza 6 will surely take priority over Nier Automata.

But see, that's what I'm talking about. We shouldn't complain and pressure ourselves to play all great games upon release. Just buy one great game at a time, play it, then get the next one. If I would have bought all the great stuff coming out in 2017 upon release, I would have ended up poor.

[gillian_seed]

Major publishers like Sony or Activision are moving their release dates away from RDR2 window. If big names are avoiding Read Dead Redemption 2, Shenmue should do it as well.

[Hyo Razuki]

Did they reschedule games to 2019 because of Red Dead Redemption 2? Which ones?

That would lead to missing out on the Chrstmas business. I can immagine them putting off a game or two but no way they're gonna leave the entire holiday season to Take 2.

But nevertheless, concerning S3, with YS Net basically having shown fuck all since the very early-looking (to put it mildly) Gamescom 2017 trailer, Red Dead Redemption or any other big AAA franchise for that matter should be our last worry.

Considering the shocking performance at Magic 2018, we have a lot of other things to worry about before worrying about RDR2.

[Pollito Diablo]

And i don't see also RDR2 like a problem, i want Red Dead Redemption 2 AND Shenmue 3, like a lot of people i imagine.