Centrale wrote: D3T Allen mentioned that he thought development had progressed a bit more than the 70% quoted in the Famitsu article, so I'm inclined to think the release date will be closer to E3 than to the end of the year. Of course that aligns quite well with my own wishful thinking, as I'd love to be playing this all summer.
I think it's likely too, here are a few reasons why I think so:
- They'll be some distance expected between this and Shenmue 3 (unless Shenmue 3's release changes and so 1&2 changes along with it, which of course is possible but things do appear locked-in right now)
- MegaDrive Classics was announced in mid-March (at SXSW) and it releases 2 and a half months after that announcement
- The same managers/developers involved with the Megadrive Classics were also involved with Shenmue 1 and 2
- HECK both MD Classics and Shenmue 1 and 2 have free bundled posters!
- Valkyria Chronicles Remastered, which was managed by SEGA Europe who are also overseeing management for Shenmue 1 and 2 (but not developed by D3T) according to IGN. It was also announced and released within a 2 month window (and also contained a free poster lol)
- Preorders properly setup up and running almost everywhere (although it can't have a shadow-dropped release on E3 stage like some speculate because that can't logistically work that way now that it's an item people are aware of and preordered by many)
- The game has progressed very far in development
- SEGA has a release for every month this year from now till September, except June. People would often point out that June is a bad time for releasing games ('cause "people are off to the beach!") but it's only really applicable for major releases, not the likes of remasters like this with low store inventory volume expected, with Crash doing exceptionally well last year during the early summer).
To me, that's certainly how things are looking right now. Obviously this is my speculation interpreting the info that's out there and it's all subject to change at a moments notice (just like yakuza 6, which was moved into the new fiscal year) and maybe things are different with project now because of preorders numbers + feedback on features they might be willing to reassess and re-evaluate it's launch.
But doing so doesn't give them too much room unless they really push the date far out beyond Dec (which doesn't make too much sense with the way they've marketed it) and I don't think that this is the sort of product they're going to hype and roll out info for months and months before launch (based on deepsilver's tweets).They'll likely continue to talk about it on twitter etc when the game is already out and chime in on the Shenmue 3 buzz etc to promote this.
I think in this case: we've come to expect a predictable enough pattern from them, with further reinforces that the newegg.com date of late June has some truth to it, and no one's come out to disprove that either.)
Obviously I'd love it sooner as we all do, but in the event that it is really far out: that's absolutely fine, I'd rather this (knowing that the game is confirmed for release at some point in 2018) then seeing them shadow-dropping the game later in the year and for most of us to be ignorant to this info.
Also, I totally see them having some time to fix stuff for late June, as they basically have until late May to go gold and start manufacturing discs. But yeah: my flagchips are placed on the end of June! It's very likely we will know more around E3 (but not necessarily on stage).
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:50 pm
