I just wish we could stop the panicking and people running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Let us analyze this situation.
This is not the first time something controversial has happened to Shenmue, and we all know the past circumstances lead to the situation that caused development hell.
When Shenmue II was canceled for dreamcast in the US was it done to benefit Shenmue or the fans? It was done for the sole purpose of greed, Peter Moore was an opportunist and Xbox wanted Shenmue as an exclusive to use against Sony. If you look at the promises and the promotional material claims, Microsoft put very little effort into the promotional aspect. I have no idea how much money was involved to get Shenmue 2 as an Xbox exclusive but clearly whatever sales were made from the Microsoft deal weren't enough to justify making a 3rd game and the platform deal and negative reviews really hurt Shenmue 2 long term.
Now look at the circumstances around Shenmue Online and the insane costs involved. It was a limited market but obviously significant time and money went into the project and it just basically went into unofficial cancelation, all of that money gone.
I am not worried about Shenmue III not coming out, what I am worried about is the epic deal is starting to give me flashbacks to the Microsoft situation to some degree and I will explain. If we play devils advocate, these are the scenarios I can see happening.
1) Shenmue 3 releases on EPIC and PS4, reviewers speak negatively about the game and the lack of exposure on Steam affects new customers from experiencing the game. Funds obtained from Shenmue 3 to go into Shenmue 4 end up going into development but due to publisher agreements, Shenmue IV is forced to conform to deep silvers requests on what should be suitable
2) Shenmue IV goes into development and becomes vaporware (worst case scenario may this never happen)
3) the consequences and fallback cause Deep Silver to reevaluate PC releases and profit loss benefit, pulls a rockstar games and makes Shenmue exclusive to Console.
Obviously these are very bad situations which on one hand you have a developer signed on but dictating distribution and while there is likely a cash flow towards publishing, what kind of terms exist and what kind of power does Deep Silver have regarding Shenmues release?
The other question is had the development rejected Deep Silver as a publisher, would there have been more development? Less development? Was cash running dry?
It's a sensitive topic and a harsh reality but one we should all be open to discussing.
For historical purposes, yes not identical but still a fascinating read from a historical standpoint how optimistic everything was back then.
Did we see this coming? - On the opening day of the Tokyo Game Show, Sega has announced that it has cancelled production of the US Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2, releasing the game for Xbox...click for more
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