Shenmue 4 discussion

pilman said:
When I was growing up, I had a Sega Genesis/mega drive but compared to Nintendo, it was very uncommon in my area for kids to have a genesis. Even Sega channel was very limited and we were unable to get it in our area.

By the time of Sega Saturn, I barely knew about it because it was not marketed as much as the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, I think I saw one or two ads and they were really strange. I don’t think I ever saw a Sega Saturn for sale anywhere except in a magazine ad and it was very expensive for the titles available.

By the time the Dreamcast was sold in the US, I saw literally no advertising for it until after it was released. I saw it being marketed at a mall and you could win them at a Chuck E. Cheese if you had enough tickets, but it was just a very strange generational gap because you had the n64, the PlayStation and the ps2 was being hyped for release with the Xbox far off and to top things off, by the time I would have had the money to buy one, the Dreamcast was effectively killed fast, I ended up getting an Xbox because you could not even find a Dreamcast over here, I had to borrow one from a friend which sadly he did not have Shenmue.

I was already aware of Shenmues existence by the time the 2nd game was being prepared for release in Europe because a friend had told me about it and so the idea of buying a system that you couldn’t really find, that had support cut off, and a game with a sequel that literally wasn’t available and was unknown if it would be at any point just made it very difficult, the only way I could learn about shenmue was reading about it and waiting for the Xbox release and later on buying a used Dreamcast and the first game in reverse order.

In regards to Sega, they always had very innovative technology that was way ahead of the competition in many ways such as the concept of Sega cd, blast processing, and even concepts of the Saturn and Dreamcast, the main issue was that at some point their marketing outside of some amazing genesis commercials and the Dreamcast commercials, the products were not always easy to find and even many of the products not even being available in the US. Perfect examples I can think of were the limited yakuza releases in Japan and also many games on Sega channel that were never released in the US and the lack of release of future phantasy star online outside of Japan. I think I’ve always seen Sega from the outside as this really innovative company that has kind of kept outsiders staring in awe and feeling kind of alienated.
Click to expand...
That sucks man, thankfully that wasn't my experience growing up. I had a SNES that gen, but roughly half my buddies had a Genesis, maybe even more. SNES was definitely Nintendo's best platform, but as an adult it's easily my least favorite of the 4th gen now despite being my first console. Then again, what's weird to me is all my friends growing up had an N64 even though the PSX thoroughly outsold it that gen... I'm getting sidetracked here, but god I hated the N64. Turned me off of 3D games entirely until I got a Dreamcast, my first non-nintendo console.

Truck_1_0_1_ said:
You know that's all bulshit, right? It was a term coined for marketing (to say that only because of, "blast processing," can Sonic move that fast), to show that the Genesis could outperform the NES in the speed department.

It wasn't just innovation, it was the fact that these were grassroots developers, coming up with new technologies, methods and techniques that were beneficial for the videogame world; its why Suzuki, Naka, Oshima, Kodama are so highly-regarded: because they were lightyears ahead of their time, on the tech side of things (hell, Naka created an emulator of NES games, on the Genesis, in 1989 simply by reverse-engineering and picking up on the code. Just ridiculous). Then on the business side, you had wonderful marketers like Kalinske and Nilsen (as mentioned) in the US, Nakayama was great for the JP side and Rosen was a fair and shrewd businessman; when he was involved with the major decisions, the company thrived. The problem with Sega was that they didn't (collectively) know how to stay at the top; same thing happened with WCW. Getting to the top is a great thing, but staying involves different strategies and different ways of thinking.

When you can't transition, that's when things can come crumbling down and since Ninty were their first, despite their inferior product, they had the assets and the backup to get back to the top... and they did.
Click to expand...
Sega was such a juggernaut on the creative and technical side, such a shame they could be such goobers on the business side.

Zoyous said:
Well... not exactly... as it turns out, blast processing actually was a real function of the MD/Gen which allowed it to display its entire color palette in a single, still, full-screen image. However, it wasn't particularly useful for games. But marketing did pick up the term and misconstrue its meaning to imply fast gameplay, because it is an awesome-sounding phrase. Digital Foundry did a video with a demo of the real blast processing this past March:
Click to expand...
I legit thought "blast processing" was just a kid-marketing friendly way of saying the MD has a faster CPU than the SNES until I saw this video. John's "retro" stuff is great.
 
After that article that a Sony exec discussed the PS5. He was saying that the feedback he got from developers is that they are able to get code running on the PS5 at LIGHTNING SPEED. Developers are saying that they will be able to get games out at a much faster pace than ever before.

What this means for Shenmue IV is that the chances of us getting that game are even higher now. If these developer claims are true, we might just get the game by the PS5 launch window or early 2021.
 
Shadow2222 said:
Getting code running is not the same as getting a game made (assets, voice work, cutscene direction, programming, etc.).
Click to expand...

Yeah, plus that’s probably fluff to attract devs to the PS5. Now that the team has the experience and the assets that should help with the development of 4. At least I would think it would.
 
TwiceFriedRice said:

Kikizo | News: Exclusive: Shenmue 3 Ready for Next-Gen

Video game reviews, previews, interviews, video downloads and cheats.
archive.videogamesdaily.com archive.videogamesdaily.com

Never forget.
Click to expand...
I'm still sorta sore on this article... I wonder if the whole thing was made up somewhere down the line, as the source is vague and there was absolutely no other hints (that I remember) at the time that this was ever real and obviously there was never any other news for many, many years that Shenmue was alive.

On the other hand, I do believe 1&2 were going to be ported to the 360 at one point, that I can at least see as a more believeable rumor.

Oh well, nothing to worry about as Shenmue 3 is really happening now so its all good! I just can't help but still wonder about the whole article and if there was any merit in it...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top