Embracer Q3 Report Presentation @ 9AM CET (3AM EST) 19-2-2020/2-19-2020

I don't know what the ex-Rare guy implies with his message, is he hitting on S3 or bragging about getting 1 million user in 18 months vs data of a 6 week period sales like it was S3?
 
Valascaziel said:
They seem to be fine with niche titles, so I expect them to go forth with Shenmue IV. I don't see any reason to not allow it if it "met expectations", if nothing else to allow Yu to finish the series out with a fourth entry.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think they would've erred a little bit more towards the "exceeds expectations" had they not bungled with the Epic deal and also if they had an Xbox version a bit earlier, if not at launch.
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I have to disagree on the Epic deal. It undoubtedly cost them sales, but assuming they picked up $5m+ from the deal, the Epic deal was easily the best option for them. Likewise; 80%+ of sales of S1/2 in Europe and NA were on PS4 and Japan, a country where Xbox One isn’t a thing, was one of the key markets for S3. Not having an Xbox One port will have again cost them sales, but nowhere near enough to have made the game exceed expectations. A switch port, on the other hand...
 
ShenSun said:
After today, i have to ask everyone, where does the series go from here? What can we expect moving forward?
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As opposed to some people here, I definitely think Shenmue IV is happening. The question is HOW ?
Basically, Shenmue III built a lot of systems and assets already, production of 4 wouldn't take as much time or money. But that's where the problem is.

- Making Shenmue IV cheaper than Shenmue III, which means worse production values and hurt the serie even more.
- Making Shenmue IV in a different way, to focus on the story aspects to save on cost and try to shine there and also one that might not progress as much.

Because the point of Shenmue III was to relaunch the serie. I believe that a success for Shenmue III wasn't to "not lose money" but to regain interest and "kickstart" (not as crowdfunding mind you) Shenmue IV with either as much budget that would this time focus more on polish and production values or even better budget.

The risk now is to end up with an even cheaper Shenmue IV.

It's a tough spot for the serie because while I definitely see a continuation... It might be with even less money.
 
I think as long as DS didnt really lose money, we are still okay.
Its not a publisher that only supports the biggest IP's ever. Look at their titles,
like Risen 1 - 3. A niche series for mostly european fans of the old Gothic games.
Not really good reviews, absolutely terrible console ports and they still made three games.
Its made by a german studio with like 20-30 employees.
THQ Nordic (parent company of DS) later bought the studio and then they made another niche RPG called Elex
and now they are working on Elex 2.

DS's game Outward is a super indie hardcore RPG made by 10-15 people
and they announced this year that they will create a completely new story DLC add on for that game.
DS admitted that they made a lot of mistakes with their game Homefront The Revolution
and they delayed Dead Island 2 again and again because they were not satisfied with the product.
So i dont think they are just doing random things and they arent cancelling every project
just because it didnt raise their income by 500%. I mean they pretty much rescued the Outward developers
just because they liked the game idea.

The Risen games probably had a budget between 5 and 12 mil Euros (no Kickstarter money)
and Outward probably even less (failed KS project). Metro 2033 and Last Light were also just AA budget games.

As long as the success is "good enough" (not losing money),
there is a fanbase and they can clear up a reasonable budget with YS Net, we still have good chance for a new Shenmue.
THQ Nordic and Koch Media are always looking for good projects
and fan favourites, otherwise they wouldnt buy IP's like Outward or Kingdome Come or revive Darksiders and Gothic.
Will they ever do a 20 - 40 mil budget Shenmue? Of course not.
 
Valascaziel said:
They seem to be fine with niche titles, so I expect them to go forth with Shenmue IV. I don't see any reason to not allow it if it "met expectations", if nothing else to allow Yu to finish the series out with a fourth entry.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I think they would've erred a little bit more towards the "exceeds expectations" had they not bungled with the Epic deal and also if they had an Xbox version a bit earlier, if not at launch.
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As you said, they're used to titles selling modestly. So when they say "it's not a mass market product, it's pretty telling.


scooterusa said:
I think if they make S4 and can show that the game ENDS there, then people will buy it en masse. Short of that I don't see it able to sell we..
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After 3, you cant end with 4. You'll get an even worse game. I don't see people buying it en masse either. Shenmue III was the sequel of a legendary title, that is often seen in your "Top 100 of best video games ever". It's also a sequel that raised many years of expectations and rumour. Shenmue IV will be the sequel of an average to decent game.
 
Tosh said:
I think as long as DS didnt really lose money, we are still okay.
Its not a publisher that only supports the biggest IP's ever. Look at their titles,
like Risen 1 - 3. A niche series for mostly european fans of the old Gothic games.
Not really good reviews, absolutely terrible console ports and they still made three games.
Its made by a german studio with like 20-30 employees.
THQ Nordic (parent company of DS) later bought the studio and then they made another niche RPG called Elex
and now they are working on Elex 2.

DS's game Outward is a super indie hardcore RPG made by 10-15 people
and they announced this year that they will create a completely new story DLC add on for that game.
DS admitted that they made a lot of mistakes with their game Homefront The Revolution
and they delayed Dead Island 2 again and again because they were not satisfied with the product.
So i dont think they are just doing random things and they arent cancelling every project
just because it didnt raise their income by 500%. I mean they pretty much rescued the Outward developers
just because they liked the game idea.

The Risen games probably had a budget between 5 and 12 mil Euros (no Kickstarter money)
and Outward probably even less (failed KS project). Metro 2033 and Last Light were also just AA budget games.

As long as the success is "good enough" (not losing money),
there is a fanbase and they can clear up a reasonable budget with YS Net, we still have good chance for a new Shenmue.
THQ Nordic and Koch Media are always looking for good projects
and fan favourites, otherwise they wouldnt buy IP's like Outward or Kingdome Come or revive Darksiders and Gothic.
Will they ever do a 20 - 40 mil budget Shenmue? Of course not.
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There's a huge difference with the titles you mentionned and Shenmue:
1. They often come at a cheaper developpement price than Shenmue.
2. They often sell more than what Shenmue III likely sold (Outward, in October, already sold over 400k copies. It's a new IP, a nicher one, that carried itself with word of mouth, and likely had a lower budget than S3).
3. The most important point: Deep Silver OWNS most of those IP. It's in their interest to push for their properties.
 
A lot of people, if not all have been going about Deep Silver, Koch Media and Epic. but I have yet to see anyone take into consideration what YSNET want. I mean, what if Yu-san and YSNET do not want to move forward with Koch Media. We have instances over the past year where you could say there might have been some friction on the part of the developer and publisher, most notably, the Epic deal.

But with statements indicating that Shenmue III did indeed make a profit, that can do nothing but strengthen Yu Suzuki's position to shop around for another publisher. He has a product which sold, niche or not. It sold on top of a Kickstarter campaign which seen a lot of copies of the game go out for free, in that regard. It sold, despite being exclusive to a PC store. It sold, despite an arguably average advertising campaign. Most of all, it sold in the face of weekly/monthly trolling, criticism, and clickbait bastardising of both the franchise and Yu Suzuki himself. You can sit on the fence all you want, hypothesize about this, wonder about that, but money and profit margin is all that matters in this business, and Shenmue III has profited.

To add to the attractive appeal of a publisher investing in a future Shenmue game, there are quite a few incentives:
  • The next game could probably be the last in the series​
  • The staff is already assembled​
  • infrastructure and contacts already in place​
  • Research and story are already done​
  • Assets, materials and architecture are in place​
  • A loyal fanbase, with its own solidified community​
What happens in the future, I will agree, that since... 2 years ago, I have had zero doubts about Shenmue IV, as well as the series being completely finished. I still have zero doubts. But, this is Yu Suzuki we are talking about. He is the man. He does things on his own terms, with no compromise. Honestly, I think we will have a bit of a wait, possibly the majority of 2020, before Shenmue IV is even announced. That's not a bad thing either because we have 1 more element of DLC to come, as well as a steam release to promote. That's outside of any other deals which could be struck as the year goes on, such as Xbox Game Pass, or Switch deals (personally I cant see any of these happening, but they are possible). I would hazard an educated guess that staff will remain at YSNET, quietly working away. I could be wrong, but common sense would say that a good chunk of money will have been reserved to keep the majority, if not all of the staff on for a sustained period of time throughout 2020. They will be free to quietly work away on the future, as we deal with Kickstarter rewards, and a steam release.

I cant speak for everyone, nor can I claim to know anything others don't, but Shenmue is in a good place believe it or not. So is YSNET, believe it or not. We are NOT going into another 20 years of no Shenmue. This is just the beginning. Just gotta go back to practicing our Wude.
 
I think a lot of people are forgetting that YSNet actually contributed the bulk of the budget for S3 through the Kickstarter and as such, I find it extremely unlikely that they agreed a standard revenue split with Deep Silver.

It’s possible that they will get $3m+ back from game sales plus whatever their share of the Epic deal was (I’m sorry, but I still refuse to believe that YsNet didn’t get a penny of this).

Who’s to say they don’t decide to self publish this time around?

Peter just posted covering the idea of finding another publisher so I’ll stop here.
 
I think Peter's on the mark here. As a community, we tend to be glass half empty: one recalls the EGS angst even here, as if Ragnarok really happened.

In the effort to keep a sober mind, I read it as such:
a. S3 did fine for what it was to be. In an era of reboots, remasters, and renewals, it survived and offered what it was to do. Moreover, the assets are sitting there like a pantry full of ramen.
b. If the prior point is true, YSNET may have some options, and one trusts YS himself will weigh what's offered to him.

Many note rightly that he's a perfectionist-- admittedly, I see this as a fault of his with reference to games, but that's another topic-- and I suspect he'll consider every venue open to him to yield the best possible result.

In a word, the game did well for what it was to do. Naturally, we're addicts for the next batch but, as I smirked at with the final delay-- if we claim to be patient, we have to maintain that. Maybe the series is never finished, but I doubt that's decided today.
 
Peter said:
Well yes, in terms of possibilities. But if both YSNET and Koch Media agree a deal for the development of Shenmue IV, then I will be happy.
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If we get Shenmue 4 in game form, I’ll be happy regardless of who published it.

Id be lying if I said I had any attachment to DS though. Obviously I’m in no doubt that having a publisher (and thus additional funding) lead to a better game, but any publisher could have pumped in the money and we’d have likely ended up with the same game.

I’m probably one of very few Shenmue fans who doesn’t hold the Epic deal against them (it made financial sense to take it), but their contribution elsewhere has been piss poor in my opinion.

I actually find it a little insulting for the Embracer CEO to come out and say that Shenmue isn’t marketable to the mainstream when their lack of strategy when it came to marketing the game was so amateurish.

A record breaking Kickstarter and the decent sales of the remasters is indicative that Shenmue could appeal to a wider audience, but there was absolutely no hype created around the time of release. Providing press with images and b-roll from old builds, mediocre trailers (I appreciate that this was partly down to YsNet, but as the people responsible for selling the game, DS should have pulled rank) and the bullshit surrounding the embargo played a big part in sales going the way they did.

Shenmue 3 was never going to sell 1 million copies in its first quarter, but for it to have performed so poorly in week 1 shows just how bad a job DS did when it came to marketing the game to the public. That a remastered version of some 20 year old games that was nearly unplayable at launch sold nearly double the copies in its opening weeks in both Japan and the UK is embarrassing.
 
tomboz said:
I’m probably one of very few Shenmue fans who doesn’t hold the Epic deal against them (it made financial sense to take it), but their contribution elsewhere has been piss poor in my opinion.
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I don't think you need to single yourself out as someone who didn't. Its not a minority mindset. The Shenmue doom and gloom crowd have been around since the original games release. Combined with late 2000's internet culture, they were awakened with the Kickstarter campaign. Shenmue III didn't make $10 million?? SHENMUE IS DOOMED! Deep Silver have came on board as the publisher? SHENMUE IS DOOMED! Those models look awful and that trailer was even worse. SHENMUE IS DOOMED! Shenmue III will be an Epic Store exclusive? SHENMUE IS DOOMED!

It got boring fast, and whilst of course it could say some potential buyers either way, a lot of people just don't care. Clearly enough didn't care to return a profit for a game that hasn't been cast in the best of light throughout its development, and scored an average rating on various aggregator sites.

Despite all of that... still sold a profit.
 
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