Shenmue Dojo

Hey all,


The numbers for Shenmue HD based on pre-orders look to be very nice, although we don't have definitive numbers other than top charts and the overwhelming positive reception. We also know that Shenmue III was a smashing Kickstarter success, as well.

That being said, how does everyone think SEGA will react to this revelation? Do you think the fourth entry is now a given, possibly entirely under SEGA in-house? Or do you think they'll sit on their laurels again for years to come?

It's worth noting they've reversed course on Yakuza the last year or so for the West, so I wonder if that also bodes well for a Shenmue IV.

It's clear as day there's a market for these games now, but the actual sales of Shenmue I & II and Shenmue III will probably determine where things go from here.

The community has won a few battles, but the war isn't over yet.

Japanese games are seeing a big resurgence. Games like Yakuza and Persona suddenly have big audiences in the west, and I think people who like those games will find something to love in Shenmue too. Shenmue couldn't have been revived at a better time.

I think that the success of the Shenmue 3 kickstarter as well as positive reception and good preorder numbers for the HD Collection does give a promising future for a 4th installment but in the end it's up to Sega and they could pull the plug pretty quickly if they wanted too. I'm not holding my breath.

If all goes well & at the moment it looks like it is then everything will go into Shenmue 4. Maybe Sega will get involved on a financial level? They have the engine to make Shenmue 4 in the dragon engine.

Shenmue 3 has to smash sales numbers too. It has a harder task in some respects because there's quite a number of us who backed the kickstarter who have already reserved copies so that's 50k sales already done or more. I know some of us will buy a release copy anyway but it's still something to overcome.

The releases of the HD games has spiked interest again and I'm seeing lots of new people on here and the 500k so Shenmue 3 is getting a good opportunity to succeed.

Riku Rose wrote: The only way Sega will want to be involved in the future of the series is if Shenmue III sells well. Sure the Kickstarter raised a lot of money but so far SIII has only sold 75k copies which would be seen as a massive flop, people thinking the game is a success based on the Kickstarter is jumping the gun quite abit. I did some rough maths before as there is at least 3-4 different companies investing their money into this game looking to make a profit and the game is being made in a country where development is expensive, I estimated for the game to be seen as a success it would have to sell around 1.5-2 million copies.

I think that could be a big ask and the marketing for the game such as the Kickstarter campaign and trailers so far have been a joke and hurt the game a lot. I’m hoping Deep Silver taking over that side will help.

About the scope of a project like this one and the profitability I always like to think like Nagoshi did with Yakuza 1 like they explain in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Er4FbnbijU

It's hard to predict what is going to happen with good preorders number but I'm pretty sure, as many of you, that it's a very important moment, if not for the franchise, maybe at least for Shenmue 1&2.

Shenmue fans continue to crush it on pre-orders! Was even number one in games on Amazon France! Keep up the momentum everyone, who knows what great things it could lead to! ;) Thank you @SEGA @SEGA_Europe for giving us the opportunity to prove our dedication! #ShenmueSaved

https://twitter.com/AdamKoralik/status/ ... 6436725760

If what Adam said about a lot of things unannounced is true, we might as fans, still have some role to play for the final release (that's only assumption of course).

Before thinking about the franchise future, Sega may begin to translate Shenmue HD in some other languages...

Shenmue fans continue to crush it on pre-orders! Was even number one in games on Amazon France! Keep up the momentum everyone, who knows what great things it could lead to! ;) Thank you @SEGA @SEGA_Europe for giving us the opportunity to prove our dedication! #ShenmueSaved

SEGA commented on this with a reweet. I don't really know what to speculate on this, unless it ties into what I postulated about them going for a fourth entry in-house development.

The only other thing I can think of is they are planning to dive into Shenmue III as another publisher, this time providing more funding and maybe sending in the resf of AM2 instead of just licensing the rights.

That would be QUITE a megaton come E3 and really speaks on this being Shenmue's year. Might result in a delay to Q2 2019, but I'd take it.

Valascaziel wrote:SEGA commented on this with a reweet. I don't really know what to speculate on this, unless it ties into what I postulated about them going for a fourth entry in-house development.

The only other thing I can think of is they are planning to dive into Shenmue III as another publisher, this time providing more funding and maybe sending in the resf of AM2 instead of just licensing the rights.

I don't know, I think the more realistic interpretation is that they're publishing Shenmue I & II HD and they're excited that it's getting a lot of pre-orders.

Yeah, the boat has sailed on SEGA really getting involved in Shenmue III at this point.

More staff and extra budget might have been welcomed a year or two ago, but both of those aspects have been addressed to some degree by Deep Silver's involvement. Depending how long it takes for I & II to come out, and how long it takes SEGA to pour over the sales numbers, III could be into debug by that point anyway.

My feeling is that Sega will only care about Shenmue if it starts to sell well in Japan too.

sega is a Business so in the worse case scenario , if sHD and s3 = huge success...the heads at sega could stop anyone making shenmue4 and just sit on the ip while they decide when is the "right time" to make it..

thats my fear.