Random Shenmue IV Thoughts.

Tosh said:
Most of the time, whenever a studio or publisher posts sales numbers,
its because the studio / publisher knows that these numbers are awesome.
They want you to notice it. But there are still dozens and dozens and dozens of games
where you actually wont hear a single word about the sales numbers.
Of course any publisher that sold like 3-10 million copies in one month is going to announce that,
but probably 70, 80% of all the other normal releases wont post any sales numbers.

For example Sega doesnt post international Yakuza sales numbers on their Twitter or whatever.
Even companies like Square Enix dont post sales numbers for every of their games.
And for example Shenmue 3 is not a exception when it comes to the catalog of Deep Silver
because Deep Silver only reports on surprisingly good sales numbers like 2 mil. +
So even if Shenmue 3 would hit like 700.000 sales or whatever, they probably wouldnt post anything about it.
We will never know how many copies Deep Silver really sold.
Probably not enough to get them interested in funding Shenmue 4.
Exactly how Shenmue 1 & 2 probably didnt make enough to get Sega interested in funding Shenmue 3.
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I fully understand everything your saying but man Shenmue 3 Kickstarter was a huge success. We raised a ton of money on our own. Retail sales were always gonna be limited due to majo8of people contributing to Kickstarter. All that data has to mean something. Shenmue 4 should be easier due to assets and resources being in place plus Yu still has Baisha assets that didn't make the cut. @Tosh something not adding up.
 
BruceWayne911 said:
I fully understand everything your saying but man Shenmue 3 Kickstarter was a huge success. We raised a ton of money on our own. Retail sales were always gonna be limited due to majo8of people contributing to Kickstarter. All that data has to mean something. Shenmue 4 should be easier due to assets and resources being in place plus Yu still has Baisha assets that didn't make the cut. @Tosh something not adding up.
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Money will always be a problem. If i remember correctly,
the guys from Warhorse Studio (Kingdom Come Deliverance) basically traveled
around the whole world to show publishers a gameplay demo and their concept
and 50% of them said straight up no thanks and the other 50% tried to change the concept.
So not a single publisher said yes. Thats why they went with Kickstarter and private investors
and then years later it turned out to be a success. But in a worst case scenario
this could have been a total failure too. Theres always going to be that risk,
especially when it comes to expensive open world games with special interest settings.

So i guess Deep Silver simply said thanks and good luck to Ys Net after Shenmue 3,
and now its the same problem all over again. They need someone with a lot of money
who likes their ideas. And this wont be easy
because they already only found a single european AA publisher for Shenmue 3
with the help of a Kickstarter campaign. So now they probably wont find another one going this route.
Which means in a best case scenario they are going to find a publisher that fully believes in Shenmue 4
and just lets them do it. But thats not very realistic.
Shenmue with its detail rich game worlds, fully voiced NPCs, cutscenes, quests etc
is never going to be cheap to develop. At the same time, it is special interest
because its part 4 of a martial arts adventure revenge story set in China.
Publishers can see that this wont earn them millions and millions of dollars.

There arent actually that many AA (15-40 mil USD budget range) publishers
but thats kind of the golden middle that Shenmue needs to make it work.
So what do you do if you already had a Kickstarter campaign with the help of Sony and a publisher
and now all of the AAA and AA publishers are saying No thanks, not interested in Shenmue 4?

Its never going to be easy. By the way, just as a example,
the same thing happened to Alan Wake. It took Remedy 13 years to release Alan Wake 2
because they didnt find anyone who was interested in funding Alan Wake 2
because Alan Wake 1 was very expensive and not a huge success.
They tried dozens and dozens of times to create Alan Wake 2 concepts
and it never worked out. It only worked out eventually because Epic Games
made a exclusive deal with Remedy so that Remedy would develop a Alan Wake Remastered
and Alan Wake sequel exclusively for Epic Games. Without this deal, Alan Wake 2 wouldnt exist.
And Alan Wake 2 probably sold a decent amount of copies but even with all the good reviews and awards
its still not going to sell a giga amount of copies.
Alan Wake always was a special interest setting, exactly like something like Shenmue.

So these kind of games, these games with huge ambitions, will always be a problem when it comes to money.
It all comes down to money.
 
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BruceWayne911 said:
Retail sales were always gonna be limited due to majo8of people contributing to Kickstarter. All that data has to mean something. Shenmue 4 should be easier due to assets and resources being in place plus Yu still has Baisha assets that didn't make the cut. @Tosh something not adding up.
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100% this. The only thing that I can figure is that Suzuki was reckless with the budget in the hopes that S3 would see the kind of success that he always hoped for the series. S3 contains expensive luxuries that no indie dev would ever dream of putting in their game and it cost them big time. I wish I knew what the original scope of the game was.

Tosh said:
So i guess Deep Silver simply said thanks and good luck to Ys Net after Shenmue 3,
and now its the same problem all over again. They need someone with a lot of money
who likes their ideas. And this wont be easy
because they already only found a single european AA publisher for Shenmue 3
with the help of a Kickstarter campaign.
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It's actually a much worse problem because with the S3 pitch, Suzuki always had the benefit of saying Shenmue 1 sold well but was limited by the DC audience, and S2 had a limited DC release and a bad port on Xbox so there was always the possibility that S3 could actually sell pretty well (~1M ish). S3 not only had the benefit of S1 and 2 HD releasing and selling decently beforehand, but also released on PS4 and PC and had a massively successful KS. It was in front of as many eyes as we could possibly have hoped for. So yeah, needless to say, that's never going to happen again...

Tosh said:
the same thing happened to Alan Wake. It took Remedy 13 years to release Alan Wake 2
because they didnt find anyone who was interested in funding Alan Wake 2
because Alan Wake 1 was very expensive and not a huge success.
They tried dozens and dozens of times to create Alan Wake 2 concepts
and it never worked out. It only worked out eventually because Epic Games
made a exclusive deal with Remedy so that Remedy would develop a Alan Wake Remastered
and Alan Wake sequel exclusively for Epic Games. Without this deal, Alan Wake 2 wouldnt exist.
And Alan Wake 2 probably sold a decent amount of copies but even with all the good reviews and awards
its still not going to sell a giga amount of copies.
Alan Wake always was a special interest setting, exactly like something like Shenmue.
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This is exactly the kind of fate that could have befallen Shenmue 3 if Shenmue 3 reviewed well. Alan Wake is a niche product, but it is clearly one that is serving its niche audience well, earning numerous perfect scores and award nominations, so it's the kind of game that will enjoy a slow but long life. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we got an Alan Wake 3. Plus Remedy has Control (a decent hit) and the Max Payne remake (guaranteed hit) to fall back on.
 
I think it's completely unnecessary to wonder how much the game sold. A rough calculation of the number shows around 500 thousand, with half (250 thousand) at full price and the others at various discounts. Maybe half a million more have it free from the epic store.

Therefore, in my opinion, it is not a bad idea to release Shenmue 4 in 3 episodes for 30 euros. An episode bought by 250k people at full price (30 euro) would make roughly 7.5 million....taking out the fees leaves a clean 5 million. If they release 1 episode each year, they'll make 15 million from these 250k in three years. Other people will join later on a promotion or when they release the full game for 60. They can even sell the full game on physical again for these that buyed the episodes before.

If they release the whole Shenmue 4 at once, they will be forced to do 50% discount only 6 months after, and after two years they will sell it for 4 euros. On episodes the game will make more money. It's a simple count, I know... And we don't know how the press would react to this. No matter how I think about it, this seems like the most logical way to cover the costs.

Shenmue 4 Episode 1 Baisha
Shenmue 4 Episode 2 Cliff Temple
Shenmue 4 Episode 3 Shanghai

Awesome! :love::giggle::coffee:
 
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thedemon1238 said:
I think it's completely unnecessary to wonder how much the game sold. A rough calculation of the number shows around 500 thousand, with half (250 thousand) at full price and the others at various discounts. Maybe half a million more have it free from the epic store.
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Where are you getting these numbers from?
 
Deep Silver : The sales are fine (but not enough). :)

iknifaugood said:
Where are you getting these numbers from?
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Various online platforms like steam, psn, have some indications that suggest the estimated number of copies sold. Number of people rating the game and so on.

Let's say it that way. Can you put the numbers you think are right ? Approximate numbers of course.


Kickstarter:
Steam:
GOG:
Epic Store:
PS4 Digital:
PS4 Physical:


Mine are something like that ~

Kickstarter: 70 000
Steam: ~ 100 000
GOG: ~30 000
Epic Store: ~ 50 000
PS4 Digital: ~100 000
PS4 Physical: 150 000

It has to be something like that :) Hardly my judgment is completely wrong.:LOL:
 
SMDzero said:
Shenmue 5: Episode 4 Xi’an
Shenmue 5: Episode 5 Busan
Shenmue 5: Episode 6 Meng Cun

Shenmue 6: Episode 7 Lyuong
Shenmue 6: Episode 8 Tibet
Shenmue 6: Episode 9 Yokosuka
Click to expand...

But why Busan? :LOL:
 
thedemon1238 said:
Let's say it that way. Can you put the numbers you think are right ? Approximate numbers of course.
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As far as KS goes, there's really no disputing those numbers as they're publicly available: 81,087 Kickstarter and Slacker backers totaling $7,179,510. Though we don't have information on refunds.

I've released games on Steam before and this site is pretty accurate, if anything it overestimates sales: https://games-stats.com/steam/game/shenmue-iii/ ~$440,000 (which assumes ~15k people paid full price so it's likely less than that).

We know that the PS4 version sold 17,857 its first week in Japan and sold half as many copies as the S1 and 2 remaster in the UK and we know that S1 and 2 sold over 100k units in its first week, so ~50k.

No way of finding stats on GOG or EGS though Epic had to pay for exclusivity rights so it's a little weird.

Without a way of knowing for sure, I would estimate that S3's sales were in the ballpark of 250-300k, not counting KS and not knowing who paid full price etc., which is why it makes sense that it isn't getting a sequel based on its budget. 500k would be the absolute highest estimate but even that would merit sequel talk if enough people bought it at full price and the budget could be reduced.
 
iknifaugood said:
As far as KS goes, there's really no disputing those numbers as they're publicly available: 81,087 Kickstarter and Slacker backers totaling $7,179,510. Though we don't have information on refunds.

I've released games on Steam before and this site is pretty accurate, if anything it overestimates sales: https://games-stats.com/steam/game/shenmue-iii/ ~$440,000 (which assumes ~15k people paid full price so it's likely less than that).

We know that the PS4 version sold 17,857 its first week in Japan and sold half as many copies as the S1 and 2 remaster in the UK and we know that S1 and 2 sold over 100k units in its first week, so ~50k.

No way of finding stats on GOG or EGS though Epic had to pay for exclusivity rights so it's a little weird.

Without a way of knowing for sure, I would estimate that S3's sales were in the ballpark of 250-300k, not counting KS and not knowing who paid full price etc., which is why it makes sense that it isn't getting a sequel based on its budget. 500k would be the absolute highest estimate but even that would merit sequel talk if enough people bought it at full price and the budget could be reduced.
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I knew something was wrong years ago when I went into a Best Buy and saw a big stack of Shenmue 3 copies just sitting unsold on the shelf.

The truth is the YS is probably looking for a $40 million investment to make a proper Shenmue 4 game. That means the game would need to sell 800,000 copies @$50 just to break even.

Any publisher would want a good 25% return on their investment so the game would need to make $50,000,000 in sales (1 Million copies sold.)

So unless YS can prove that S4 will sell a Million copies at full price it will be hard to find an investor.
 
SMDzero said:
I knew something was wrong years ago when I went into a Best Buy and saw a big stack of Shenmue 3 copies just sitting unsold on the shelf.

The truth is the YS is probably looking for a $40 million investment to make a proper Shenmue 4 game. That means the game would need to sell 800,000 copies @$50 just to break even.

Any publisher would want a good 25% return on their investment so the game would need to make $50,000,000 in sales (1 Million copies sold.)

So unless YS can prove that S4 will sell a Million copies it will be hard to find an investor.
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Cedric has literally said they'd like $20m.

Now them getting it is a massively different and difficult task.
 
iknifaugood said:
We know that the PS4 version sold 17,857 its first week in Japan and sold half as many copies as the S1 and 2 remaster in the UK and we know that S1 and 2 sold over 100k units in its first week, so ~50k.
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IIRC that half comment was based around the UK sales in particular.
 
spud1897 said:
Cedric has literally said they'd like $20m.

Now them getting it is a massively different and difficult task.
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But the budget for S3 was $20M… I thought YS was looking for a much greater budget for S4 so that it could compete for a wider audience?
 
SMDzero said:
But the budget for S3 was $20M… I thought YS was looking for a much greater budget for S4 so that it could compete for a wider audience?
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It was but Cedrics point being is that with the systems in place they can do more with it.

Ideally they'd like a bigger budget than that but know its not likely.
 
spud1897 said:
It was but Cedrics point being is that with the systems in place they can do more with it.

Ideally they'd like a bigger budget than that but know its not likely.
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Okay then at a $20M budget S4 would need to sell 500,000 at full price to make a 25% profit.

Didn’t S3 sell maybe half that?

Investors need to understand that the higher the budget the more Shenmue 4 will sell.

Can you imagine the S4 YS could make if he had the budget of GTA6 ($1-2 Billion)? That Shenmue 4 would literally change the world.
 
SMDzero said:
Okay then at a $20M budget S4 would need to sell 500,000 at full price to make a 25% profit.

Didn’t S3 sell maybe half that?

Investors need to understand that the higher the budget the more Shenmue 4 will sell.

Can you imagine the S4 YS could make if he had the budget of GTA6 ($1-2 Billion)? That Shenmue 4 would literally change the world.
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Yes but can you see it ever justifying that budget?

I'll defend Shenmue to the hilt but there's no way they'd ever command that sort of budget.
 
spud1897 said:
Yes but can you see it ever justifying that budget?

I'll defend Shenmue to the hilt but there's no way they'd ever command that sort of budget.
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Well they are spending over $1 Billion on GTA6 but it’s going to be derivative more stealing cars and causing mayhem just with a shiny new coat of paint.

A S4 with that budget would change the very fabric of what’s considered to be a videogame shifting the paradigm of the entire industry forward into a new era.

Alas I know that not too many investors have 1 billy on hand to give to YsNet not in this economy.
 
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