Shenmue IV Will Happen - Here's Why!

spud1897 said:
I'll break it down but agian based on nothing more than guesswork:

Full price: 150k
In sales: 200-250k
Freebie from Epic: 700k

So I reckon there could be 1m 'copies' in circulation with the large majoirty being in sales/free. That's the issue has it seen say 400k sales at full price I expect the numbers might be slightly better.
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Do you think shenmue 4 will happen?
 
WuyingRen said:
Lol. Okay bud. Here is Yu Suzuki’s personal email address. You should drop him a line and let him know how easy it is, because I don’t think he got the memo. Better to add another 10% or so onto this figure though, as I forgot to include Sega’s licensing fee in my previous napkin math. In fact, you might wanna make that 20%, as the big wigs at Sega will probably want to hang onto a significant chunk of the merchandising rights like they did last time, further impacting any potential publisher’s ability to monetize their investment.

#ShenmueSaved
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20% Sega fees? They don't ask that much even for their other licensed games, and I remember Yu mentioning Sega did a favour price for him.

Even if we can only make an estimate, Shenmue 3 should be around 300k-500k, that are pretty solid numbers for a game literally sabotaged by deep silver' greed / incompetence and the stupidity of a portion of fanbase.

Just for the record, a game like Streets of Rage 4, another dead IP that (unlike shenmue) had no active fanbase and no record breaking kickstarter, sold 2.5 million of copies, so don't believe that 500k is some kind of difficult goal in todays market. Without all the hate shenmue 3 could've reached the 1 million mark.
 
ahmed_alency7 said:
So do you think it will most likely end in shenmue 4 or 5 is possible
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I don't think that Yu Suzuki and team will have much choice if by the grace of God they get another shot to make a Shenmue game. They will have to complete the story in the 4th game.
 
I think if we get 4 it will be easier to sell a fifth and final game, assuming that 5 will actually be the final game. I could see a lot of fans who didn’t play 3(and potentially 4) coming back for the final game if they know it’s the end.

I’m sitting at 60/40 for S4 being made vs not.
 
Suzaku said:
20% Sega fees? They don't ask that much even for their other licensed games, and I remember Yu mentioning Sega did a favour price for him.
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We have no idea how much Sega charge for licensing the Shenmue IP (or any of their other IPs, for that matter). I’d be very surprised if it’s anywhere near 10 or 20% (1 or 2% seem much more likely, or a flat up-front fee), but given how tight the margins are on 500,000 sales, any prospective publisher should be targeting at least 550,000 - 600,000 sales to account for this and all of the other expenses.

Suzaku said:
Even if we can only make an estimate, Shenmue 3 should be around 300k-500k, that are pretty solid numbers for a game literally sabotaged by deep silver' greed / incompetence and the stupidity of a portion of fanbase.
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There is no evidence to suggest that Shenmue 3 sold anywhere near 300k-500k copies at full price. In fact, quite the contrary. What little data we do have suggests that Shenmue 3 sold between 50k-100k in its first week. It was heavily discounted almost immediately after that (iirc you could get it for $30 in Walmart a little over one week after it’s release), so any further sales were not at full price.

Suzaku said:
Just for the record, a game like Streets of Rage 4, another dead IP that (unlike shenmue) had no active fanbase and no record breaking kickstarter, sold 2.5 million of copies, so don't believe that 500k is some kind of difficult goal in todays market. Without all the hate shenmue 3 could've reached the 1 million mark.
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Streets of Rage absolutely had an active fanbase before the series was revived, but even if it didn’t, so what? You’re comparing a critically acclaimed beat ‘em up to a narrative driven RPG that got mixed reviews and was disliked by a fairly significant portion of the fanbase. Better to compare Shenmue 3 to one of the thousands of other games that fails to sell 500,000 copies every year; full priced or otherwise.

You remind me of somebody I know who was convinced that selling 1 million copies of a game at full price was easy. He managed to convince some investors of this too (they were investors from outside of the gaming industry who didn’t know any better and were suckered in by the talk of huge RoI) and was able to raise over $20m to make his game. When it finally arrived (over budget, because they had to delay it by five months), it reviewed poorly and sold fewer than 100,000 copies, which led to him being forced out of his own company and losing ownership of all of the IP that he’d spent almost a full decade developing.

He learned the hard way that selling 1 million copies (or 500,000, for that matter) is far from easy. You can cherry pick examples all you like, but the reality is, for every game that manages to sell 500,000 copies, there are 50+ that don’t. You may not be able to wrap your head around this, but publishers are well aware of it, which is why finding one willing to risk $10m+ on a third-party franchise with a history of underperforming is going to be incredibly challenging.
 
ahmed_alency7 said:
@spud1897 how much do you think shenmue hd sold?
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I really don't know. Full price sales at the time of release allowed it to debut at no 2 in the UK charts. VG Chartz stop tracking sales at around 300k after 10 weeks. So it's not unrealistic now to have more than that sold mixed between full price and sales

SEGA were happy with its performance though remember this was a cheaper project to do.
 
spud1897 said:
I really don't know. Full price sales at the time of release allowed it to debut at no 2 in the UK charts. VG Chartz stop tracking sales at around 300k after 10 weeks. So it's not unrealistic now to have more than that sold mixed between full price and sales

SEGA were happy with its performance though remember this was a cheaper project to do.
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I think it sold 1 million copies. What’s your hypothesis for lifetime sales?
 
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Marketing is much more important in the gaming world, much more than I previously thought.

It is most difficult to attract the attention of the mass audience. Especially with something unfamiliar.

I thought 110 Industries' marketing was good, but it turns out it only appealed to the hardcore audience. :rolleyes:

Even if we don't have the exact sales data, reading your estimated sales is no very different than mine. It's not easy at all to sell 500k if you don't attract at least parts of the mainstream players. Streets Of Rage 4 is more of a coop/party game from the 16 bit generation, which they made with a retro inspired look and design. Most of my friends who play only AAA Playstation games bought it. Even those who haven't played the Mega Drive games. They somehow think it's cool for couch co-op. And it is, I know that. It's just very different genre compare to a single player game like shenmue. Co-op was trending then. :)
 
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WuyingRen said:
We have no idea how much Sega charge for licensing the Shenmue IP (or any of their other IPs, for that matter). I’d be very surprised if it’s anywhere near 10 or 20% (1 or 2% seem much more likely, or a flat up-front fee), but given how tight the margins are on 500,000 sales, any prospective publisher should be targeting at least 550,000 - 600,000 sales to account for this and all of the other expenses.
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We don't have data, but usually licensing fees can be around 5%, of course it can be lower or higher, it depends on what IP you are licensing (Space channel 5, Panzer Dragoon and Streets of rage will not cost the same as the Sonic license for example).
And Yu received even a favor price for Shenmue (he probably got it almost free at a symbolic price, Instead I remember Yu mentioning Sega asking real money to include classic Sega arcades in-game, so he gave up on the idea), so I don't think Sega license fees impacted much if not at all.



WuyingRen said:
There is no evidence to suggest that Shenmue 3 sold anywhere near 300k-500k copies at full price. In fact, quite the contrary. What little data we do have suggests that Shenmue 3 sold between 50k-100k in its first week. It was heavily discounted almost immediately after that (iirc you could get it for $30 in Walmart a little over one week after it’s release), so any further sales were not at full price.
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We made some estimate back then.
Also Deep Silver said "it sold fine", and 100k aren't fine at all for a AA game, even after the Epic Games deal.
So we are looking at 250-300k minimum, of course Deep Silver expected a lot more given the kickstarter success, but they should've also recognized their awful marketing job during that famous press conference...

As I said before, even Yakuza games in the past profited with less than 400k, and yakuza games also lower the retail price after few months.



WuyingRen said:
Streets of Rage absolutely had an active fanbase before the series was revived, but even if it didn’t, so what? You’re comparing a critically acclaimed beat ‘em up to a narrative driven RPG that got mixed reviews and was disliked by a fairly significant portion of the fanbase. Better to compare Shenmue 3 to one of the thousands of other games that fails to sell 500,000 copies every year; full priced or otherwise.
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I'm simply comparing two Sega licensed (previously) dormant IPs.

Even if we want to make a comparison to some random games who underperforms, I can't remember right now a japanese single player AA game on PS4 that sold less than 500k...


WuyingRen said:
You remind me of somebody I know who was convinced that selling 1 million copies of a game at full price was easy. He managed to convince some investors of this too (they were investors from outside of the gaming industry who didn’t know any better and were suckered in by the talk of huge RoI) and was able to raise over $20m to make his game. When it finally arrived (over budget, because they had to delay it by five months), it reviewed poorly and sold fewer than 100,000 copies, which led to him being forced out of his own company and losing ownership of all of the IP that he’d spent almost a full decade developing.

He learned the hard way that selling 1 million copies (or 500,000, for that matter) is far from easy. You can cherry pick examples all you like, but the reality is, for every game that manages to sell 500,000 copies, there are 50+ that don’t. You may not be able to wrap your head around this, but publishers are well aware of it, which is why finding one willing to risk $10m+ on a third-party franchise with a history of underperforming is going to be incredibly challenging.
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Who was this guy?

I never said that selling 500k is easy, but it's easier now compared to the past, given the current market, audience, word of mouth and socials (that are a double edge blade), especially compared to the PS3/360 generation where AA games had no space on the market.

Publishers of course play safe, the challenge is to find a decent one, like Sega was in the past (and sometimes it is even roday).
But we are looking at Sega or for new publishers with no name, where existing IPs can really help them compared to create a brand new IP (that's why 110 industries teases were credible).

I'm sure Yu will find one.
 
Suzaku said:
I'm simply comparing two Sega licensed (previously) dormant IPs.

Even if we want to make a comparison to some random games who underperforms, I can't remember right now a japanese single player AA game on PS4 that sold less than 500k...
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I was wondering which Sammy-Sega game can be compared to Shenmue 3 sales? Valkyria Chronicles probably sells more. Maybe the new Sakura Wars for PS4 is comparable? :) Or Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania? If not Sammy-SEGA, I think sales for Shenmue 3 is closer to these of Atelier games. (these before Ryza)

Found some info on Sakura Wars sales.
www.resetera.com

Sakura Wars (PS4) has sold 300,000 copies in FY 2020

As noted here from said FY 2020 update report. I’m pleasantly surprised, I imagine most of these sales are worldwide given FY 2020 started back in April (when the game released internationally). And honestly? I really felt like I heard so little talk about this game overall. Not to mention...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com
 
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