Hyo Razuki wrote: Well, we got our answer. The smaller languages won. It's in the FAQ already. They're even thinking about adding Portuguese and Chinese.Shenmue 3 will be available in English and Japanese, and since the Stretch Goals have been reached, German, French, Italian and Spanish languages will be added as well. We have received many requests to add Portuguese and Chinese among other languages as well. We are hopeful that funding levels will allow for further languages. Should additional languages be added, there will be an announcement made on the Update page.
Guess the translations can't be regarded as wasted money since the subtitles have been requested by some of the Kickers themselves. They have paid for it, in a way. I understand each individual's take on this might be different based on what country they live in or their own fluency in English, but I agree that many countries can't be regarded as proficient enough. Sure, in about every country you can always get someone to give you directions or sell you stuff in English (in big cities at least) but it doesn't necessarily mean these people can understand deeper conversations. Balancing that against the fact that Yu is intent to make Shenmue 3 rapport-oriented and focused on the story, I think it's quite clear just how important understanding the dialogues actually will be.
I believe it has been estimated that around 10,000 hours of study (active or passive -- watching movies count) are needed to achieve actual fluency in English. It follows that even if you keep a steady, intense pace in your training, you still won't be able to fully understand English-language adventure games before reaching a certain age. Back in high-school, I remember understanding Shenmue was challenging about 20% of the time, and I was far from the worst English student in my class, quite the contrary. And then there are all the bits I thought I understood well only to realise later with my more proficient skills that I had missed some of the nuances. So not translating also means excluding part of a younger audience even in countries where English is relatively well spoken.
tl;dr I think they know what they are doing. If translations are so high in their stretch goal list it's probably because they realise that the incomplete localisations of the previous games was a huge hindrance to their success and don't want to repeat the same mistakes.