How Shenmue 3 Chased the Memory, but Lost Sight of the Vision (ign)

red said:
uk.ign.com

How Shenmue 3 Chased the Memory, but Lost Sight of the Vision - IGN

The good, the bad and the Suzuki.
uk.ign.com uk.ign.com
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From my comment in the random thoughts thread:

Generally it's well written. The sales bit is slightly misleading. While I dont think it pulled up trees in sales we know it met financial expectations so they could have provided clarity around that, seeing as this information is readily available.

Otherwise a decently put together piece.
 
Excellent article; articulates almost all of my thoughts perfectly.

Shenmue has always had a fixation on the ‘stuff in between’. For the faithful, it’s the time between appointments that opens up its world, that allows the actual narrative moments to matter, that gives real weight to something like leaving one’s home, something that is often a trivial detail in many video games.
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This guy gets it.

Sonoshee said:
He actually included the already-debunked "Shenmue 3 is the reason why Deep Silver's revenue did so poorly" BS
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I think the larger point being made was that S3 under performed in terms of sales putting the future of the franchise, yet again, in uncertain waters. Whether or not DS is giving accurate numbers (publishers do nothing if not pass the buck), what they're not saying is "Shenmue 3 was an amazing success and we can't wait to work on Shenmue 4!".
 
iknifaugood said:
It did? Where is this info available?
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Heres the report: https://embracer.com/investors/reports-presentations/

It's under Q3 and the PDF is there.

This is the webcast: https://embracer.com/webcast/q3-report-webcast-presentation/

The opening section and Q&A are the bits you'd need. He does say in fairness it did financially fine but is a niche market game. Take from that what you will but they wouldn't report its met expectations in a report that would have legal ramifications if they deliberately mislead investors.
 
spud1897 said:
Heres the report: https://embracer.com/investors/reports-presentations/

It's under Q3 and the PDF is there.

This is the webcast: https://embracer.com/webcast/q3-report-webcast-presentation/

The opening section and Q&A are the bits you'd need. He does say in fairness it did financially fine but is a niche market game. Take from that what you will but they wouldn't report its met expectations in a report that would have legal ramifications if they deliberately mislead investors.
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I've seen the quote that S3 did "fine but is a niche market game" but I don't see where the PDF says that S3 met projections. I'm just wondering because if S3 did indeed meet projections, that increases S4's chances pretty substantially.
 
iknifaugood said:
I've seen the quote that S3 did "fine but is a niche market game" but I don't see where the PDF says that S3 met projections. I'm just wondering because if S3 did indeed meet projections, that increases S4's chances pretty substantially.
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Here is the quote. Again it's a take what you will from it job but it's not bad news IMO

New releases performed in line with management expectations in the quarter. The performance of back catalog sales was strong during the quarter, both digitally and physically and exceeded management expectations in the quarter.

Shenmue III was the principal Deep Silver revenue driver in the quarter, followed by another new release of Let’s Sing 2020. Moreover, Metro Exodus continued to give a significant contribution to Deep Silver’s revenue in the quarter, as well as other notable back catalog titles such as Kingdom Come Deliverance and Outward.
 
I also agree that this was a pretty spot on article, highlighting a lot of the faults with the game in an unbiased way.

I do take fault with one part though

Shenmue’s story should never be mistaken for a masterpiece – it’s a revenge tale that does a handy job of spinning a few plates, nothing more. It’s never needed to be more.
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I have no idea why this is such a widely claimed thing, even among fans. It's so obvious that Shenmue's story was always meant to be more than a simple revenge tale. Whether or not it succeeds at that is another thing, but to claim that the story of Shenmue was never that important or intended to be anything more than a basic revenge plot is flat out wrong.
 
spud1897 said:
Here is the quote. Again it's a take what you will from it job but it's not bad news IMO

New releases performed in line with management expectations in the quarter. The performance of back catalog sales was strong during the quarter, both digitally and physically and exceeded management expectations in the quarter.

Shenmue III was the principal Deep Silver revenue driver in the quarter, followed by another new release of Let’s Sing 2020. Moreover, Metro Exodus continued to give a significant contribution to Deep Silver’s revenue in the quarter, as well as other notable back catalog titles such as Kingdom Come Deliverance and Outward.
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I can't see it as well. I didn't listen to the presentation but I looked through the report and ppt.

It says that Shenmue 3 was the primary revenue driver for the quarter, which makes sense, but also that the revenue was down 19% from last year because of the lack of large IP's released.

I also remember reading elsewhere that they lowered their revenue projections for the year because overall sales were lower than expected.

The CEO may have said it performed fine, but until they announce Shenmue 4 I'll remain cautious in my expectations.

I can see how Shenmue 3 may have made it's money back for the publisher, but I think the prospect of Shenmue 4 rests on how much profit they think they can make. They need to determine if it's worth the investment and so far I'm not seeing that, but we'll see. The DLC likely hasn't been factored into the sales yet.

EDIT: I should add that although I'm pessimistic I'm still hopeful we'll get an S4
 
hmjohnny said:
I can't see it as well. I didn't listen to the presentation but I looked through the report and ppt.

It says that Shenmue 3 was the primary revenue driver for the quarter, which makes sense, but also that the revenue was down 19% from last year because of the lack of large IP's released.

I also remember reading elsewhere that they lowered their revenue projections for the year because overall sales were lower than expected.

The CEO may have said it performed fine, but until they announce Shenmue 4 I'll remain cautious in my expectations.

I can see how Shenmue 3 may have made it's money back for the publisher, but I think the prospect of Shenmue 4 rests on how much profit they think they can make. They need to determine if it's worth the investment and so far I'm not seeing that, but we'll see. The DLC likely hasn't been factored into the sales yet.
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Indeed. I remember the projections report but that information was based off of Gamestat (or something like it) which is wholly inaccurate, luckily the actual report debunked the predictions.

Also I suppose we've got to consider Shenmue III came out when there was 6 weeks left of Q3 so as you say you've got to factor in Q4 and DLC to determine profit.

Its safe to say it made back the investment and maybe a small profit. Whether it's more than that we will probably find out during their end of year presentation which is normally in May.

I'd urge cautious optimism for Shenmue 4.
 
hmjohnny said:
I have no idea why this is such a widely claimed thing, even among fans. It's so obvious that Shenmue's story was always meant to be more than a simple revenge tale. Whether or not it succeeds at that is another thing, but to claim that the story of Shenmue was never that important or intended to be anything more than a basic revenge plot is flat out wrong.
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Yea this is the only egregious oversight since, as the article points out, Shenmue is all about balancing the mundane with payoffs. What, exactly, the author views as a payoff if not the story sequences, is mysterious.

spud1897 said:
Shenmue III was the principal Deep Silver revenue driver in the quarter, followed by another new release of Let’s Sing 2020. Moreover, Metro Exodus continued to give a significant contribution to Deep Silver’s revenue in the quarter, as well as other notable back catalog titles such as Kingdom Come Deliverance and Outward.
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This reads to me that while Shenmue launched in November, sales were "significantly" contributed to by Metro Exodus, which launched in February. Basically:

dcc6Gsm.jpg


spud1897 said:
Its safe to say it made back the investment and maybe a small profit. Whether it's more than that we will probably find out during their end of year presentation which is normally in May.

I'd urge cautious optimism for Shenmue 4.
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Agreed.
 
iknifaugood said:
I think the larger point being made was that S3 under performed in terms of sales putting the future of the franchise, yet again, in uncertain waters. Whether or not DS is giving accurate numbers (publishers do nothing if not pass the buck), what they're not saying is "Shenmue 3 was an amazing success and we can't wait to work on Shenmue 4!".
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That's fine. He pretty much summed that up without having to resort to the incorrect article he linked to, though.
 
It was well written. He doesn’t take a shit on the game, but he doesn’t sugar coat it’s glaring flaws. I think that he resonated as a disappointed fan who was optimistic about getting a better product than what we got
 
hmjohnny said:
I also remember reading elsewhere that they lowered their revenue projections for the year because overall sales were lower than expected.
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Yep, that was part of the report based on gamestat that ended being debunked.
 
As I said in Random Thoughts: I find it hard to argue with much in that article (ignoring the sales stuff, but that's been well-covered in the sales thread).

It's well-written, it acknowledges the good and the bad, and I basically agree on the majority of points made.

hmjohnny said:
I have no idea why this is such a widely claimed thing, even among fans. It's so obvious that Shenmue's story was always meant to be more than a simple revenge tale. Whether or not it succeeds at that is another thing, but to claim that the story of Shenmue was never that important or intended to be anything more than a basic revenge plot is flat out wrong.
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I didn't read it that way. I think he was just pointing out that Shenmue isn't a game that stands purely on narrative alone, that these other aspects contribute greatly to its story. I think summarising it as "a revenge story that does a handy job of spinning a few plates" is pretty accurate, and isn't meant as a negative.

I like that he acknowledges that the "other stuff" is extremely important in Shenmue, and that Shenmue III nails quite a lot of it, because I agree :coffee:
 
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