by SnowyHarbor » Mon Jun 09, 2014 4:25 pm
Games and gaming culture has changed a lot since Shenmue was released... but I feel Shenmue has a multitude of engaging gameplay elements that are still present in the modern age (fighting/combat, investigation, exploration, great storytelling). If developed in a way that accentuates and builds upon these elements I think it could definitely be viable in today's market.
I think the factor that's ultimately the most detrimental to the possibility of a launch is that it would be a continuation of a franchise and a story that has been gone for a very long time. Unless Shenmue was relaunched with the previous games included in addition to the finale of the story, it would only realistically be targeting the core audience that already played Shenmue 1 & 2, which although I'm sure this number is large, I doubt it's large enough to make Shenmue 3 a viable financial risk.
Unfortunately to the best of my knowledge businesses mostly base their decisions off of some tangible data, numbers that can give them some assurance that their investment or gamble could pay off. I think if a company like Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo took the plunge to fund Shenmue 3 the greatest benefit would be the gaming-cred that they'd receive by taking the risk. The amount of people that would talk about and buy their console for Shenmue, the other games they'd buy on that console and maybe the next console from them because they made a new gaming fan, their name in the history books for finishing a chapter in gaming history, would be the real payoff. Unfortunately it's hard to quantify the financial gain of these elements, which most likely will keep the franchise from ever being funded by such a company unless a CEO comes in that just has some huge balls for lack of a better term ;).
It would be interesting to see someone's thoughts on this in specific detail. Maybe a financial analyst or someone that could really crunch some numbers, comparing modern day development budgets, Shenmue fanbase numbers, estimated purchases by aforementioned fanbase, etc.. to see just how viable it would actually be.