Sales of Shenmue III: Where are we now?

spud1897 said:
I think we will have to take this one on the chin somewhat. But that doesn't mean we can't ask questions.

The last one of these financials they had an open email questions running and I got a reply outside of it last time around.

If I get chance to watch I'll be asking the following if they allow it again:

1. Does the figure include the deal from Epic? How did that impact these figures?

2. In terms of marketing was it found that the strategy was ineffective in pushing the game to new audiences and if so why? Should there have been more community engagement from Deep Silver?

3. Why were gaming media consistently using old assets in their articles? Should Deep Silver have done more around this?

4. We know that the figures Gamestat are often inaccurate. What is the long term projection/expectation for sales of Shenmue III from Deep Silver? Is more accurate data available?

Feel free to add anything else.

If they kickstarter it again I think it wont do anywhere near as well.
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It is completely moronic of Deep Silver to OK this report without any real sales figures. Again Terminator performed worse and that had an expensive license, 7 years of development and no kickstarter money , no epic money and no 70K presold copies but Shenmue is to blame according to an analyst that can pull figures no different to a bunch of fans on a message board?

People will use this as yet another stick to beat the franchise with. I bet that loathesome cunt Jim Sterling is creaming himself into a frenzy creating a youtube video as we speak.

Fucking Deep Silver...

Deep Shit more like !

When the next DLC drops and they are pushing it on their facebook page, I guarantee it will be full of people falling over themselves to proclaim lol flop than gaining any kind of buzz. Talk about self sabotage. Nobody wants to be associated with a product deemed as a failure....basic marketing 101. How can they be this hopeless?

I'm fucking fed up of defending this series when the bloody publisher seems to try and fuck it up at every opportunity
 
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Does anyone have any estimated figures then?

I keep seeing this 20K in Japan and AdamKoralik hinted that UK sales were poor.

Is there a general ballpark worldwide figure being thrown about or is it anyones guess?
 
The 50K figure is pulled from Gamestat.
We know at least 7500 LE copies (5000 LRG, 2500 Pix N Love) Sold out.
The regular CE in Europe sold out months ago.
We know approx. 21K copies were sold in Japan
We know at least 10K copies were sold in the UK (at retail not digital)
The game topped the charts on black Friday when it was reduced to $30.
The game has a known trophy bug so the list doesn't populate until you earn one so using trophies as a tracking stat is flawed.
Yet despite all this Deep Silver have deemed it OK to commission this report with a 50K figure pulled from Gamestat without any hard figures, PC numbers or anything of real substance. People on this forum have done a more thorough job and they didn't get fucking paid to do it either.
Losing all faith in this company. How can you limit a special edition to 5000 units in the biggest market in the world, have them sell out in an hour and then complain it underperformed. I said that was a mistake months and months ago.

Down by Law said:
Sept 9th 2019: Nice half a million in revenue there for LRG. I always said I think it was a mistake to limit it to 5000 in the US.
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Down by Law said:
It is completely moronic of Deep Silver to OK this report without any real sales figures. Again Terminator performed worse and that had an expensive license, 7 years of development and no kickstarter money , no epic money and no 70K presold copies but Shenmue is to blame according to an analyst that can pull figures no different to a bunch of fans on a message board?

People will use this as yet another stick to beat the franchise with. I bet that loathesome cunt Jim Sterling is creaming himself into a frenzy creating a youtube video as we speak.

Fucking Deep Silver...

Deep Shit more like !

When the next DLC drops and they are pushing it on their facebook page, I guarantee it will be full of people falling over themselves to proclaim lol flop than gaining any kind of buzz. Talk about self sabotage. Nobody wants to be associated with a product deemed as a failure....basic marketing 101. How can they be this hopeless?

I'm fucking fed up of defending this series when the bloody publisher seems to try and fuck it up at every opportunity
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Well how about not blaming a publisher you surely praised for taking over Shenmue 3 before?

Lots of members here can't just accept the fact that Shenmue sales always sucked an will always suck in the future? Why attack a publisher and calling them morons and shit?

If you dont have the REAL sales figures (which you apparently do judging by your post) you should just not say that.

Plus I think DS knows better than you how to handle press or judge sales estimates.

Amazing
 
If i ran a business and paid someone to do a report on my business which made my business look bad, which only had figures from trophy sites and not hard data, which literally anyone with a keyboard has access too, then I would ask them to hold fire on that report and certainly not post it and damage my brand by doing so.

Look at mjqs thread on resetera its already got people piling in on the game again.

Nothing good will come of this

Whoever compiled this report clearly didn't look into Terminators performance. Having your headline pick out Shenmue as a reason to lower your forecasts is brand damaging. Anyone can see that
 
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Down by Law said:
If i ran a business and paid someone to do a report on my business which made my business look bad, which only had figures from trophy sites and not hard data, then I would ask them to hold fire on that report and certainly not post it and damage my brand by doing so.

Look at mjqs thread on resetera its already got people piling in on the game again.

Nothing good will come of this
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Stay strong my friend, we will have to weather this storm.

What begs the question is how much did Deep Silver really care about the franchise as a whole? Let's review 2017-release.

1. The 2017 trailer, over 1m views on Youtube. Now I get the arguement for and against but lets be honest negative news flows much faster and sticks. Why release a trailer which is basically Alpha stage. Envrionments were fine but the models curated a mass of criticism. Even me as a fan had to look twice. Was it pressure of the kickstarter? Or was it Deep Silver pushing? If what we're led to believe is true Cedric has a massive disagreement with Deep Silver over this, hence Shibuya not having their name on the trailer. Says enough.

2. The PR, take the Epic thing out of it for a moment. What PR has there been? Media were consistently using old materials, even into release. Was wasn't this addressed publicly? Deep Silver should have come down on this. Next is the community relationship, there wasn't one. It seems crazy not to market the game with the help of the fanbase who know it best.
What about the whole embargo issue, another problem the game didn't need.

3. Epic: Now from a money making sense I get it but from a PR front this could well have been one of the single worst things to happen. Now I admit I don't give 2 shits about using another storefront but the strength of discontent was major. Now they could use this for a major title like Metro, but with a Niche title like Shenmue I fear the reputation has taken such a hit off of this, one that will linger for years, which ruined trust with some fans and created more negative press that they didn't deal with.

4. Marketing. Now some of the trailers towards the end were decent with the release trailer being very good. But overall this was poor. The older trailers were clearly WIP but given the reaction to the 2017 trailer why didn't they slow down on this, maybe show more screens etc? Now I know there was pressure from a large number of fans wanting gameplay and maybe they listened too much to it and then pushed this stuff out to keep people sweet. That said if this was part of a strategy then it was highly flawed. Lessons were not learnt. Couple that in with PR fuck ups and it really doesn't bode well.

Then comes in the Shenmue 3 videos with Yu Suzuki. Great videos once translated, but why the fuck weren't they translated from the start? Also this was led by IGN Japan, not Deep Silver! Shows how much effort they put in to helping others understand the game/series.

Now saying that pinning your figures on a trophy site that is inaccurate for financials is beyond stupid. If something isn't looking good that's fine but back it up with hard data, not some tracking that has little actual credibility. Also by stating it is the sole reason for the revision being dropped is ludicrous, one game isn't responsible for a $7million revision. What were they really expecting from a game which has been kicked more times than I can count with such cock-ups.

Now Shenmue is niche, it was never going to sell millions but it had the potential, with the right care and attention to do well. It did not get that at all.

I'm biased of course. I love this franchise and community but Shenmue has been let down by the above IMO. That said the final financials/end of year stuff is due in May. We might see some hard data there and be surprised.

This isn't the end of the series, not while Yu wants to do it and the community are behind him, we need to be more than ever. But I reckon this is Deep Silver done and funding will have to come from elsewhere.

We can get through this, give it time.
 
Agreed on all points. What really irked me with the 2017 trailer was why not have a small introduction from Yu or even a splash screen to say "these character models are not final and taken from a very early build". That was obvious to anyone who understands game development on a low budget grassroots level, but it made the game a laughing stock to the casual gamer who is used to see games being downgraded from the initial reveal, not made better!

Deep Silver's word means shit to me at this point. They can post all the cryptic tweets they like but until they actually say we are committed to the franchise long term I wash my hands of them . The fact this report throws the game under the metaphorical bus is absolutely damming to me, beyond stupid, and does nothing but drive waves of critisicm toward the project, damaging the Shenmue IP, the loyalty of the fans, and the would be customers who potentially would have bought the game or DLC. Like I said nobody wants to be involved with a failed project, which will make it even harder for YsNet to secure alternate funding if Deep Silver want to cut and run.

To publish this without any actual figures I just can't wrap my head around it at all. So unbelievably frustrating.
 
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Yeah that's the first of many I presume. This is exactly what I was talking about. What an absolute disaster.
 
GhostTrick said:
Okay I need to chime in the discussion about one thing.
"50k players" they didn't say "50k sales". It's a far different metric and it's important to remember that.
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Agreed by why use it, especially now it's out in the open and media are running with it.
 
All I’ll say is this: have patience.

I understand that a lot of people here have a deep love for the franchise, but getting ourselves worked up over mere speculation doesn’t help anyone. Until we get official confirmation as to whether Shenmue IV will be made there’s little we can do. Realistically this is the best time to be proactive by simply supporting the upcoming DLC that will be releasing or demanding for Shenmue IV on social media.

Let’s not forget that from 2001-2015 we had nothing, that the only reason Shenmue III even exists is because we never gave up on it. If Shenmue III sales flop, that will be a shame but we should keep moving forward. Mistakes were no doubt made with Shenmue III, but the past is the past and we can’t change it. So the best we can do is to move forward and focus on the future, because Shenmue will only really die when the fans give up on it.
 
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