Shenmue IV Will Happen - Here's Why!

ahmed_alency7 said:
@spud1897 @WuyingRen thoughts??
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No. SEGA like to play it safe or waste money chasing trends too late.

The money they spent on Hyenas could have made Shenmue 4, 5 and more & they'd have made some of it back.

Shenmue under the SEGA banner isn't likely.
 
spud1897 said:
The money they spent on Hyenas could have made Shenmue 4, 5 and more & they'd have made some of it back.
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This isn't really accurate. Hyenas was a game in a popular genre made by a hit studio; unfortunately it's the type of game that requires massive upfront costs before you can really gauge player interest and by the time they got that feedback (and it was negative) it was already too late so they cut their losses rather than absorb the further maintenance costs. It made total sense for Sega to add a high profile shooter to their portfolio, they trusted a studio with a proven track record, and they attempted to circumvent the competition (it was to be a full priced game, it wasn't a battle royale, and it had a huge budget).

But tell me if you've heard this before: a studio with a proven track record working well outside its wheelhouse, a massive budget in a genre dominated by heavy hitters with established IPs, a long development process in a shifting market with fickle tastes, and a tepid response when it needed to be a smash hit. What didn't make sense at all was for Sega to greenlight more Shenmue to maybe break even. I mean, what's the plan there?

spud1897 said:
If I were a betting man I'd say games are still more likely than Anime.
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This is probably true and, if we're rolling the dice with a new creative team for the anime, then it's probably the least bad option.
 
Hyenas costed them more than $100 according to ex developers (and it could've been worse if the service was activated, more money wasted for the next 5 years...).
That's just like 10 Shenmue or Yakuza games at least (for perspective imagine from Shnemue 4 to Shenmue 8, and from Yakuza 9 to Yakuza 13, no kiddin), games that generate profits, unlike Hyenas that was a total loss and costed many people their jobs.

Yes it's true that they (tried to) made an high profile investment, but from what we are reading, the write was on the wall:
the game was generic and bland, reception was negative (what a surprise...), game had no direction, they had no clue about what they were doing, just a generic "follow the other live service success", and the creative assembly console section has a track record of commercial failures and bad games, even their best game Alien Isolation, barely made a profit etc.

And you give the team your biggest budget ever... they are totally crazy.
 
Suzaku said:
That's just like 10 Shenmue or Yakuza games at least (for perspective imagine from Shnemue 4 to Shenmue 8, and from Yakuza 9 to Yakuza 13, no kiddin), games that generate profits, unlike Hyenas that was a total loss and costed many people their jobs.
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Shenmue doesn't generate profits though (it could if it were scaled down for its audience, but we're talking about rounding errors here, plus many fans don't even want the series to give up voice acting, let alone big superfluous 3D environments). Yakuza makes money, and they will continue to make games in that series, but it's nowhere near the same level of profit that a high profile FPS can yield.

Suzaku said:
Yes it's true that they (tried to) made an high profile investment, but from what we are reading, the write was on the wall:
the game was generic and bland, reception was negative (what a surprise...), game had no direction, they had no clue about what they were doing, just a generic "follow the other live service success", and the creative assembly console section has a track record of commercial failures and bad games, even their best game Alien Isolation, barely made a profit etc.
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Yes it all looks so clear now, but if you're Sega and you've got $100M in 2020, you're telling me you'd spend that on Shenmue over a potentially lucrative FPS? The same fate befell Lawbreakers and that was helmed by Cliff Bleszinski, who had decades of experience leading Unreal Tournament and Gears of War. Game development is a messy business.
 
Do you think the success of shenmue hd collection and the anime have made sega rethink working on shenmue even shenmue 4 in some capacity.
 
I love how ahmed_alency7 always asks the hardest questions to answer. He can get out the truth even from Yu Suzuki if he has a chance to interview him. :)

Unfortunately yes.... we don't know many things. The truth about Hyena is very painful, but what can we do. Companies today want more money and takes bigger risks. I really hope some publisher believe in Shenmue.

Hd remasters are cheaper to make than a new game. Sega takes money for the shenmue licence from the companies that made the anime. I don't think that that means something to them at all. They even lose money from the failed remake. I bet the time wasted on the remake was subtracted from the profits of the HD remaster to make even at the end. I really want SEGA to be involved, but it would be a miracle in my opinion. But after all, crazier things have happened. :LOL:
 
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thedemon1238 said:
I love how ahmed_alency7 always asks the hardest questions to answer. He can get out the truth even from Yu Suzuki if he has a chance to interview him. :)

Unfortunately yes.... we don't know many things. The truth about Hyena is very painful, but what can we do. Companies today want more money and takes bigger risks. I really hope some publisher believe in Shenmue.

Hd remasters are cheaper to make than a new game. Sega takes money for the shenmue licence from the companies that made the anime. I don't think that that means something to them at all. They even lose money from the failed remake. I bet the time wasted on the remake was subtracted from the profits of the HD remaster to make even at the end. I really want SEGA to be involved, but it would be a miracle in my opinion. But after all, crazier things have happened. :LOL:
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Why do you think the remakes failed do you think it would’ve not met the fans standards and sega’s
 
thedemon1238 said:
I love how ahmed_alency7 always asks the hardest questions to answer. He can get out the truth even from Yu Suzuki if he has a chance to interview him. :)

Unfortunately yes.... we don't know many things. The truth about Hyena is very painful, but what can we do. Companies today want more money and takes bigger risks. I really hope some publisher believe in Shenmue.

Hd remasters are cheaper to make than a new game. Sega takes money for the shenmue licence from the companies that made the anime. I don't think that that means something to them at all. They even lose money from the failed remake. I bet the time wasted on the remake was subtracted from the profits of the HD remaster to make even at the end. I really want SEGA to be involved, but it would be a miracle in my opinion. But after all, crazier things have happened. :LOL:
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You just self-inmolated mate
 
I don't know about the fans standards for the HD remasters at the time of release. At that time I was warm up for Shenmue 3 with the dreamcast versions. :) Years after that I've buyed HD remaster on a discount for Xbox and PC. Steam version has some graphical bugs on my AMD gpu, but the console versions are very nice. :LOL:

The problem I think was the canceled remake (not the HD remaster). I wonder how much money SEGА lost until they realized that SHENMUE is actually a very big and difficult game to remake. :smilecat: They surely thought it would be easier, but when they saw the reality, the whole ordeal became risky again...

EDIT: There's a saying in my area "He who does not risk, he does not win!" SEGA please, take a risk with Shenmue! :giggle:
 
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iknifaugood said:
What didn't make sense at all was for Sega to greenlight more Shenmue to maybe break even. I mean, what's the plan there?
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Not releasing HYENAS was a complete waste of effort and money. If they're going to waste as much as they did, they may as well be putting a fraction of it into Shenmue and getting some return on it, even if it only just "breaks even". That's the point. They're too busy chasing trends too late or just pumping out Sonic and Yakuza every year. It's tedious. :rolleyes:
 
iknifaugood said:
Shenmue doesn't generate profits though (it could if it were scaled down for its audience, but we're talking about rounding errors here, plus many fans don't even want the series to give up voice acting, let alone big superfluous 3D environments). Yakuza makes money, and they will continue to make games in that series, but it's nowhere near the same level of profit that a high profile FPS can yield.
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Shenmue 3 made profit though.
you're right about not giving up on voice acting and 3D enviroments, that's some of the features that makes "Shenmue", and of course those have a cost.
But fans can accept to not have English dub for example, that is a acceptable sacrifice.

About Yakuza, they release a game every year, even if the profits are lower of course compared to a AAA FPS, in the space of 10 years they will release 10 games (semplification) vs 1 single FPS game.
In the long run, maybe 10 Yakuza game can even have an advantange over one single big FPS that in 10 years can also suffer a decline.
In any case Hyenas was cancelled and generated a HUGE loss, and it showed that it wasn't a good idea at all.

Yes it all looks so clear now, but if you're Sega and you've got $100M in 2020, you're telling me you'd spend that on Shenmue over a potentially lucrative FPS? The same fate befell Lawbreakers and that was helmed by Cliff Bleszinski, who had decades of experience leading Unreal Tournament and Gears of War. Game development is a messy business.
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I don't know, the market was already saturated in 2020, and these kind of projects are literally a gamble.
If you win, you win big and you'll have your own fortnite, but that's less than 1%
99% you'll end like this, a cancelled project, discontinued service after some years, sales decline, huge losses and in some case even barkruptcy.
Personally I would never green light something like that, it's less risky to just release a new console...
 
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ahmed_alency7 said:
Why do you think the remakes failed do you think it would’ve not met the fans standards and sega’s
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No offense sir, but whilst I'm sure your questions are sincere and you want to know things, there is a spammy vibe about it all. And I don't think you've even thanked anybody for people being patient and answering all your questions.

Is it too hard to ask all your questions in one or two posts?

Sorry if i'm being grumpy.
 
I really think that in order for Shenmue to continue, there needs to be some innovation in how they get funding. I don’t have the answer for this as I am not at all involved in game making, but it seems the historical way of getting publishers to fund games like Shenmue is probably going away.

Just like movies and TV, companies nowadays won’t take risks. So all we see are sequels to successful franchises. I know there are still smaller productions, etc. but it is getting harder and harder for creators to create with freedom.

I think ideas like episodic content along with crowdfunding are good as it involves much less risk and the people that really want the content can help. Like I said though, there have to be other, better ways to get funding than just this. I hope YS Net figures it out and is open to alternatives.
 
japalp said:
I really think that in order for Shenmue to continue, there needs to be some innovation in how they get funding. I don’t have the answer for this as I am not at all involved in game making, but it seems the historical way of getting publishers to fund games like Shenmue is probably going away.

Just like movies and TV, companies nowadays won’t take risks. So all we see are sequels to successful franchises. I know there are still smaller productions, etc. but it is getting harder and harder for creators to create with freedom.

I think ideas like episodic content along with crowdfunding are good as it involves much less risk and the people that really want the content can help. Like I said though, there have to be other, better ways to get funding than just this. I hope YS Net figures it out and is open to alternatives.
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I dont know if there's public funding for videogames in Japan but if there is, Shenmue fairly deserves it as few games had brought its modern culture so well and so earnest like that. Alright, the sequels happens in China but the main character still is japanese and no game comes to mind in portraying so well the things which he enjoys of a different asian country, the culture shocks and without being embarrased of it badly localizating the game for the west. Shenmue series was responsable for many people feeling confortable playing in an asian setting. I demand the Japan's goverment to fund Shenmue IV, at least partially, and to name Yu Suzuki a Knight of the empire or Alive national treasure. Justice.
 
Sega are stupid and continue to be stupid. Instead of chasing trends that have clearly already peaked and are on a down trend, they could have invested that money into a new Shenmue game, a new virtual fighter, a new skies of Arcadia, a new (insert any other franchise).

There will be another big genre hit in gaming in the coming years, much like there was with hero shooters, battle royal games or live service in general. When there is, Sega will be too scared to act and won't do anything. Once that new genre is on the decline, they will throw all their money at it. it will then fail and they will be left scratching their heads wondering why it wasn't successful??

The company is very lucky they have Persona, Yakuza and Sonic to always fall back on, otherwise, they would go out of business very quickly.
 
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