To be fair, Sega may have more of a vested interest in the Shenmue series than we think. Reason being is because they actually tried to execute a full fledged on remake of the first two games out of their own pockets. So while it's difficult to be optimistic towards Sega's treatment of the Shenmue series, the fact they would budget out a Shenmue remake is an positive trend I think.
I concur. I've feel that SEGA really has wanted to do more with the series, but couldn't really find any good way to justify sinking money into a franchise that famously lost them money. Perhaps it's SEGA's continued reverence for Yu Suzuki's talent and vision. The man is perhaps as important to gaming as Shigeru Miyamoto, and a lot of SEGA's success to begin with can accurately be attributed to Yu Suzuki's contributions as both a visionary director/designer, as well as a good producer. This is perhaps mixed with feelings of guilt, as SEGA's failures ended up impacting Suzuki's efforts to create his magnum opus. And part of it was just that everything was overshadowed by the Sony marketing monolith of the day.
Basically, I think, to this day, SEGA's feelings about Shenmue are completely intertwined with their feelings about the Dreamcast's death. Based on all that I've managed to read, SEGA's demeanor towards Shenmue has always seemed remorseful more than anything else. SEGA deliberately aiming for an expensive remake first, rather than just a port, strikes me as a move that isn't cold and corporate, but brought on from a desire to do well by the series. Eventually, I think the realisation settled back in that such an expense still couldn't be justified, and a port was decided upon instead.
Now, I could be completely wrong, but look at most any other game company that isn't interested in doing anything with a series. When's the last time Valve has acknowledge Half-Life or even Left 4 Dead? They didn't even put Half-Life on sale several months ago when it was HL's 20th anniversary. When's the last time Activision mentioned SWAT or Soldier of Fortune? When's the last time Ubisoft's mentioned Prince of Persia or Driver? Or when's the last time Koei-Tecmo has mentioned Ninja Gaiden? What about Capcom and Lost Planet or God Hand or Viewtiful Joe? Last time Marvelous XSEED touched Deadly Premonition, they produced
really half-assed, busted ports that they never fixed. FROM Software hasn't touched Tenchu or Armored Core or especially King's Field for years and years now. Konami doesn't care about any of their IPs other than PES now. Even the early Silent Hill titles, despite having masterpiece statuses, got only a sloppy port from them. Square Enix hasn't said a word about Thief pretty much since the 2014 game came out. The list goes on and on and on... and yet SEGA has a record of having said something about Shenmue every few years, and it always reads pretty closely to, "We wish we could do something with Shenmue." And when they finally had the chance to do something with it, their first instinct was to sink an unjustifiable (to parent company Sega Sammy, in particular) amount of money into a full-on updated remake of Shenmue 1 & 2. That, to me, speaks volumes.
