SegaSammy should take back Shenmue.

Ren

Ren

Joined
Aug 22, 2018
I think the best possible situation to happen is that SegaSammy takes Shenmue back and fund and make Shenmue IV.
No Deep Silver, No Awesome Japan and no Fangamer.
SegaSammy is not the same company but they can do a lot better job marketing and producing the game.
Sega getting Shenmue back would convince the community back to the same passion as before which been lost to many people.
Would give back people a guarantee of quality instead of a indie game quality game.
1) Sega Capsules need to come back, especially Sonic capsules
2) Throw Move Scrolls need to come back.
3) Remove most of the mini-games from the game and 100+ items they just a waste of resources.
4) Remove food system
5) Focus on the damn story, Shenmue charm was being a Cinematic game, it was like playing a martial arts film.
6) Make game world smaller but more "alive" like Shenmue I
7) I rather have 3-4 small different location that have Huge copy-pasted maps.
8) Better script and translation
 
tomboz said:
Why would SEGA be interested in investing millions of dollars into a game that will most likely cost them money (again)? They’re a business, not a charity.
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Because Shenmue prove itself to be a strong franchise by breaking the record of the highest-funded Kickstarter game.
Beating well know games like Megaman(mighty 9) and Castlevania spiritual successor and even with a Low budget Shenmue III manage to do ok, not a high success but ok. Shenmue with Higher Budget and Strong Marketing have the potential to sell even more.
 
Ren said:
Because Shenmue prove itself to be a strong franchise by breaking the record of the highest-funded Kickstarter game.
Beating well know games like Megaman(mighty 9) and Castlevania spiritual successor and even with a Low budget Shenmue III manage to do ok, not a high success but ok. Shenmue with Higher Budget and Strong Marketing have the potential to sell even more.
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Whilst I admire your optimism, I think that at best, an exceptional S4 would sell between 500k and 1m copies across its lifetime. For a game with a budget of around $10m, that would be fine, but if you increase the budget by much more I think it’s likely to struggle to break even. That’s assuming they make an exceptional game, which they failed to do with $12m and 4+ years of development time with S3. I don’t think there will be too many people open to taking on that kind of risk, let alone SEGA who are quite a cautious company that has been burnt by Shenmue before.
 
If Sega can't make Streets of Rage, Panzer Dragoon or the House of the Dead in-house anymore then Shenmue has zero chance.

AM2 can't even work on Virtua Fighter 6 so why would they use that team of developers to make a game that would undoubtedly cost more to make with potentially far less returns?

It's never gonna happen mate. Sucks I know but we gotta be realistic.
 
As much as I'd love this to happen I can't see it unless Sega see money in it.

The re-releases probably turned a profit but they were done with likely minimal expense. Plus Sega seem to be licencing out all their older IP's rather than going in house which means a nice little earner for them but minimal efforts.
 
I think big problem with Shenmue III the campaign was handled poorly, fangamer did a very poor job, deep silver took decisions without our concern, what did awesome japan did again?
I think Shenmue would be better if handled by more professional companies, Sadly Sega is not what they were before,I been waiting all this time for a miracle that segaSammy would finally separate for Sega. Which could happen since Sega been passed by different companies since it was founded.
if Sega was sold to another company everything would be different now.
Sega Capsules not appearing on Shenmue for me was a Huge Negative and change of the Combat system.
No Throw moves and removal and change in Combat I personally didn't welcome it. It really cut down the continuation of the game. I think Yu did a Huge mistake my marketing Shenmue as a "mini games" game. Which was some nice extra feature but never was what made Shenmue special. A lot of budget and time was wasted on things that were not crucial to the game.
The game was 50% Shenmue and 50% another game I didn't care for.
 
Although I have no belief Sega will touch Shenmue 4 from a financial standpoint, I wouldn't mind it if they did fund it from a hopes and dreams standpoint strictly for capital reasons. As long as Sega doesn't touch anything or have any input/say so on the final product, let YS do his thing. We don't need Shenmue 4 to play like a Yakuza game.
 
I agree with you that it would undoubtedly be the best for the series. But it seems really really really unlikely to happen in real life :D.

We should be thankful if they cede the license to Yu Suzuki for another game with the same terms.
 
I can almost guarantee Sega will never want to touch this IP again. With Shenmue 3 sales just being ‘acceptable’, they still don’t see revenue potential on their investment. Sega is a business that will follow the best practices of profit like any other business.
 
I am still disappointed that SegaSammy didn't support Shenmue as expected, they should had allow Sega capsules on Shenmue and offer share some resources to make better game, instead they seem to just lend the IP, charge a % of sales and nothing else.
 
Ren said:
I am still disappointed that SegaSammy didn't support Shenmue as expected, they should had allow Sega capsules on Shenmue and offer share some resources to make better game, instead they seem to just lend the IP, charge a % of sales and nothing else.
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I rembember reading somewhere that Sega actually was fine with its gacha capsules in Shenmue III, but it was a creative decision by Ysnet not to have them. And I believe that, since there are other explicit Sega references into the game (even the Sega logo itself) with no problem.
 
jcjimher said:
I rembember reading somewhere that Sega actually was fine with its gacha capsules in Shenmue III, but it was a creative decision by Ysnet not to have them. And I believe that, since there are other explicit Sega references into the game (even the Sega logo itself) with no problem.
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That is very interesting, I would like to read that, was it an article you read online?
 
SEGA spent 12-13 years not giving a shit about Shenmue. They gave Yu the IP as a courtesy because it was zero risk to them.

SEGA themselves don't even have many teams capable of making Shenmue -- they farm most of their IPs out now. RGG Studio aren't going to stop making Yakuza games to make Shenmue.

Ren said:
I think big problem with Shenmue III the campaign was handled poorly, fangamer did a very poor job, deep silver took decisions without our concern, what did awesome japan did again?
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I understand not loving the game, but who cares about all that peripheral crap now the game is done and out? None of it affects the game itself. If anything, without Deep Silver's investment, Shenmue III would've been an unmitigated disaster.

The grass is always greener my friend.
 
orient said:
SEGA spent 12-13 years not giving a shit about Shenmue. They gave Yu the IP as a courtesy because it was zero risk to them.

SEGA themselves don't even have many teams capable of making Shenmue -- they farm most of their IPs out now. RGG Studio aren't going to stop making Yakuza games to make Shenmue.
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Exactly.

They can't even bring themselves to keep making Virtua Fighter. What makes anyone think they give a damn about Shenmue when they don't even seemingly give a damn about the series that started it all? They've let their competition -- Tekken -- dominate the Fighting Game scene so yeah....why would they make Shenmue when they don't even give a damn about the series that started it all?

I feel like RGG studios is the only studio worth a damn within current day SEGA -- No, I take that back, they also have Atlus under their umbrella. But yeah, in terms of internal studios, RGG is the only one worth a damn. Sonic Team still exists and is relegated to pumping out mediocre Sonic games -- hell, even a INDEPENDENT team made a better Sonic game than Sonic Team has made in some time -- I think the last decent Sonic Team game was Sonic Generations, but it's kind of sad when people outside of SEGA know Sonic better than they do.

Streets of Rage 4, Panzer Dragoon Remakes? All being farmed out to indie studios. Hell, even AM2 -- the once former gods of SEGA -- are relegated nowadays to mobile and rhythm games...not that I have anything against a good rhythm game, but it's just sad to see AM2 relegated from its former glory to almost nothing.

The only two studios worth a damn in current day SEGA are RGG Studios and ATLUS. RGG Studios are too busy pumping out the annual Yakuza games and ATLUS is off doing their own thing to even give a damn about a franchise that is by all rights now completely and utterly cult like in its status.

So who in SEGA would realistically take Shenmue and make it glorious again when SEGA is a mere shell of its former self?

I mean I love SEGA. I will always love SEGA. I've been with them through both good and bad. Lately I do think they've been doing a lot of good faith moves be it some of their games (the Yakuza franchise is going from strength to strength) or acquisitions (acquiring Atlus was a good move).

I think giving Yu the Shenmue licence was one of those kind gestures of good faith...because if they weren't going to do anything with it then why not give it to him and let him see if he can do something with it. And he did.
 
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The only option is that somehow someday Sega and Sammy separate and Sega is purchase by another company.
Then again we may have to wait another 10-20 years too happen by then we going to be too old lol.
 
Ren said:
The only option is that somehow someday Sega and Sammy separate and Sega is purchase by another company.
Then again we may have to wait another 10-20 years too happen by then we going to be too old lol.
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If any other company is big enough to purchase SEGA, it'll be a company so big they won't even care about Shenmue in their portfolio. Even for SEGA as it is, making a mid sized Shenmue title (bigger than III) would never risk them of closing shop or being in the red. In fact, for the last quarter, their Entertainment division alone generated over 12 millions dollars of profits. That's not the entire company as a whole which recorded 208.6 millions dollars of profits. In a single quarter.

No, it all comes down if financially, it's worth it to put 20 millions dollars in Shenmue when for that much money, you could make one or two Yakuza titles that'd generate two to three times more money each. Or you could make 4 to 5 lower grade games from other IPs that'd generate as a whole a lot more money than a Shenmue game. This is the reason, despite not generating losses, companies don't always bring back some IPs or games. Because that time, money and staff spent on a project would be better spent when it comes to profitability on other things.

And this is why SEGA is licensing those IPs, such as Shenmue, Streets of Rage or Wonderboy: They don't want to spend money on those IPs. They don't want to spend time or staff on those IPs. But keeping those asleep is also a waste of money and property. So they license them to 3rd parties to generate additionnal profits.
 
The only way Sega's touching Shenmue is if RGG turns Shenmue into another RGG, meaning an action-packed, silly, budget-oriented Shenmue, and that's an outcome that benefits nobody. You'd lose the franchise completely.
 
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