Shenmue IV Will Happen - Here's Why!

SMDzero said:
He is now reduced to making useless mobile games and that is NOT YS in his element.
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Air Twister is a mobile game and it is obviously heavily influenced by Space Harrier.
Bit rude to just fob-off something he clearly made with a lot of love.
 
Sonoshee said:
Air Twister is a mobile game and it is obviously heavily influenced by Space Harrier.
Bit rude to just fob-off something he clearly made with a lot of love.
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But YS wants to change the world with his game creations like he always did.

I’m sure Air Twister is a nice game and you can have a bit of fun for a few minutes. But it’s not a world changing game.

Can you imagine how ground breaking Shenmue 3 would have been had YS been given a $200 million budget?
 
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SMDzero, Shenmue series changed the gaming world 20 years ago and still no one can top it or come close.

All we want is for the game to be completed in a state close to the first 3 games. Nobody wants fame and recognition. They are already there.

For me, using a 200 million budget is not something to be proud of. I'd be more impressed if I saw how some studios save money. Forget about these 200 million and look more realistically. :)

You must understand that shenmue 1 and 2, apart from being great games, served the function of a tech demo for dreamcast. There is NO NEED for Shenmue 3 or 4 to have TOP graphics CURRENTLY. I would even say that Shenmue 3 is too beautiful. I like nice graphics, but it's not that important in this case. Ysnet just needs a quality publisher who understands the game. Deep silver was not that publisher.
 
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Sonoshee said:
Living on cloud cuckoo land. Phil Spencer couldn't give two hoots about Shenmue, let alone AM2.
He was offered S3 by Yu on a few occasions, each of which were turned down.
He even stated it was the most requested sequel by Xbox fans, yet did nothing.
And let's not pretend he was remotely serious about not funding Shenmue 3 because it was a third party IP while he was focusing on first party. Xbox's first party output has been mediocre since the start of his tenure and there's been plenty of support for non-Xbox franchises (I wonder how much Xbox pay to get games on their Game Pass subscription).
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thedemon1238 said:
SMDzero, Shenmue series changed the gaming world 20 years ago and still no one can top it or come close.

All we want is for the game to be completed in a state close to the first 3 games. Nobody wants fame and recognition. They are already there.

For me, using a 200 million budget is not something to be proud of. I'd be more impressed if I saw how some studios save money. Forget about these 200 million and look more realistically. :)

You must understand that shenmue 1 and 2, apart from being great games, served the function of a tech demo for dreamcast. There is NO NEED for Shenmue 3 or 4 to have TOP graphics CURRENTLY. I would even say that Shenmue 3 is too beautiful. I like nice graphics, but it's not that important in this case. Ysnet just needs a quality publisher who understands the game. Deep silver was not that publisher.
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Beautifully said! Top notch! The right publisher is the key! 🙂
 
bcdcdude said:
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Why would Phil Spencer be interested in buying Nintendo but not Sega?

Think about it Phil Spencer had been an abject failure and Xbox sucks. There is literally no reason to buy an Xbox and Phil Spencer knows this. But he also knows that if he bought Sega and Shenmue became 1st party and Shenmue 4 was a world changing game it would drive Xbox sales.
 
SMDzero said:
Why would Phil Spencer be interested in buying Nintendo but not Sega?

Think about it Phil Spencer had been an abject failure and Xbox sucks. There is literally no reason to buy an Xbox and Phil Spencer knows this. But he also knows that if he bought Sega and Shenmue became 1st party and Shenmue 4 was a world changing game it would drive Xbox sales.
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It would need to be. Current series sales do not suggest, outside of the first game, that it's sales would be massive.

They'd need to find a way to make it sell and not lose its core or spirit.
 
spud1897 said:
It would need to be. Current series sales do not suggest, outside of the first game, that it's sales would be massive.

They'd need to find a way to make it sell and not lose its core or spirit.
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Shenmue 4 should be made like Read Dead Redemption 2 but with martial arts instead of cowboys. I think the fans would appreciate that plus it would sell.

Can you imagine playing Red Dead 2 but it’s set in China with Ryo Ren and Shenhua as playable characters and it told a rich in-depth story rooted in the lore of Shenmue and the end of the Qing Dynasty? That would be dope.

The last Qing Emperor (Dragon) and Empress (Phoenix) fought for the power of the mirrors causing death and destruction and the end of their rule and now Lan Di and Niao Sun are fighting that same war and it is up to Ryo Shenhua and Ren to stop the cycle of death and revenge. That story with Read Dead 2 production values would sell
 
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SMDzero said:
Why would Phil Spencer be interested in buying Nintendo but not Sega?

Think about it Phil Spencer had been an abject failure and Xbox sucks. There is literally no reason to buy an Xbox and Phil Spencer knows this. But he also knows that if he bought Sega and Shenmue became 1st party and Shenmue 4 was a world changing game it would drive Xbox sales.
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He can't even get his first party titles right, no way would I trust him to oversee Shenmue 4 even with Yu Suzuki at the helm.
 
With the gaming industry mainly AAA gaming going through a difficult and bad time almost all major gaming publishers or companies are doing mass layoffs & canceling projects where does lead to shenmue 4 or the state of a shenmue 4 right now or the state of the series as a whole will this result in companies looking at mixing up a bit to try to earn profits like a AA game or a big indie game here and there maybe after they reconstruct their going to cut some corners on their AAA games and release them sooner or delay some for a better quality game that will result in better sales but in that time gap maybe they wanna impress cause these days it’s all about impressing investors maybe they wanna impress their investors by releasing smaller games or projects in that gap to make as much profits as possible or make the generated revenue in that quarter or fiscal year attractive to investors and potential investors.

I think the gaming industry as a whole will at least at least look back at making creative or unique games or making smaller games here and there or in between or looking back at reviving older tiles or IPs you know unique games we only used to see in the 6th like shenmue, jet li: rise to honor, rockstar’s bully, beyond good and evil etc. i think if I throw a number in there 20% of the industry as whole will throw smaller games/projects here and there like AA games or a low-AAA games they could be revivals (reboot like god of war or something like a yakuza 0 or the recently throw shenmue 0 or long-waited sequels or remasters and remakes
 
Maybe it’s just me being jaded, but I’d almost be willing to place money on the major game studios changing almost nothing in regards to their AAA strategies. They’re pretty much all looking for home runs, and in most cases, the windfall profits they’re after require what we might consider pretty obscene investment. I kind of anticipate the games industry will mostly just do what a bunch of other industries do to maximize profits out of risky endeavors: Lay off workers. I’m kind of hedging my bet, because that’s what they’ve already been doing. Some are probably going to end up with more misses than hits and fold, of course.

I know this is meant to be a positive topic, but it’s a pretty old one at this point, and a lot of things have changed. One thing that kind of makes me think Shenmue 4 might be a pipe dream at this point is how poorly FFVII Rebirth has sold. There are surely a number of different factors contributing to that, but one big one is that it’s a direct sequel. Obviously it’s not a perfect analogy for Shenmue 4 since Rebirth is part of a remake where they split the original into three parts, but what I think is notable is that the VII Remake was released when the original FFVII was 23 years old. Now it’s 27 years old at the time of Rebirth’s release. Direct sequels are probably doomed to market attrition; Getting fresh blood is probably a non-starter, and having large gaps of time between those releases probably just makes it even less realistic. If Shenmue 4’s ceiling for sales is almost certainly capped at a fraction of Shenmue 3’s before even a finger is lifted in development, I’m not so sure I see a realistic way that it happens in today’s climate.

Not that I want to turn people off of fighting the good fight, though. If Yu is willing to burn bridges in his late career, there’s always a chance he could fleece some entity out of a bag of cash to make another one. Would just need to move on to another stiff after that to finish it up. I guess there’s also the outside chance YSNet works up enough cash on hand through other projects like Air Twister to make something resembling Shenmue with, but—.
 
Depending on sales of Air Twister is a lost cause. The game is ten times more niche than shenmue. Very small number of the shenmue fanbase are interested in air twister. The sales probably are enough to make a small profit and keep the company alive, but nothing more.
Ysnet is not at fault here. They are doing what they can.

I think the only way for shenmue is to change the model. They have a solid fan base and they must make the game episodic. Three short episodes and then put them together into a full game. I'll happily double dip. Same model/tactic for shenmue 5. There is no other way. Just give us a chance to double dip, to invest in kickstarter... First episode with kickstarter money, second with the profit from the first and so on. If the money runs out, that's the end. We are alone here. Sammy-Sega doesn't care and there's no generous cool publishers right now.
 
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Rydeen said:
Maybe it’s just me being jaded, but I’d almost be willing to place money on the major game studios changing almost nothing in regards to their AAA strategies. They’re pretty much all looking for home runs, and in most cases, the windfall profits they’re after require what we might consider pretty obscene investment. I kind of anticipate the games industry will mostly just do what a bunch of other industries do to maximize profits out of risky endeavors: Lay off workers. I’m kind of hedging my bet, because that’s what they’ve already been doing. Some are probably going to end up with more misses than hits and fold, of course.

I know this is meant to be a positive topic, but it’s a pretty old one at this point, and a lot of things have changed. One thing that kind of makes me think Shenmue 4 might be a pipe dream at this point is how poorly FFVII Rebirth has sold. There are surely a number of different factors contributing to that, but one big one is that it’s a direct sequel. Obviously it’s not a perfect analogy for Shenmue 4 since Rebirth is part of a remake where they split the original into three parts, but what I think is notable is that the VII Remake was released when the original FFVII was 23 years old. Now it’s 27 years old at the time of Rebirth’s release. Direct sequels are probably doomed to market attrition; Getting fresh blood is probably a non-starter, and having large gaps of time between those releases probably just makes it even less realistic. If Shenmue 4’s ceiling for sales is almost certainly capped at a fraction of Shenmue 3’s before even a finger is lifted in development, I’m not so sure I see a realistic way that it happens in today’s climate.

Not that I want to turn people off of fighting the good fight, though. If Yu is willing to burn bridges in his late career, there’s always a chance he could fleece some entity out of a bag of cash to make another one. Would just need to move on to another stiff after that to finish it up. I guess there’s also the outside chance YSNet works up enough cash on hand through other projects like Air Twister to make something resembling Shenmue with, but—.
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On the subject of Final Fantasy VII, it’s telling that the only people I’ve heard discuss the remake are adults. Kids don’t care.
 
thedemon1238 said:
Depending on sales of Air Twister is a lost cause. The game is ten times more niche than shenmue. Very small number of the shenmue fanbase are interested in air twister. The sales probably are enough to make a small profit and keep the company alive, but nothing more.
Ysnet is not at fault here. They are doing what they can.

I think the only way for shenmue is to change the model. They have a solid fan base and they must make the game episodic. Three short episodes and then put them together into a full game. I'll happily double dip. Same model/tactic for shenmue 5. There is no other way. Just give us a chance to double dip, to invest in kickstarter... First episode with kickstarter money, second with the profit from the first and so on. If the money runs out, that's the end. We are alone here. Sammy-Sega doesn't care and there's no generous cool publishers right now.
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For sure, Air Twister sales alone wouldn't make a dent. I was talking more about Air Twister as one of a series of projects, along with some incentives from Apple, etc that might add up to a small pile that could be squirreled away to make something like a point and click adventure game for Shenmue IV. It was kind of tongue-in-cheek, regardless. I wouldn't even really want that for Shenmue IV, but i wasn't presenting either scenario as particularly likely, either.

Even an episodic scenario, assuming they call it exactly, dead on, what the market for it is, and set the budget for each episode appropriately to try to daisy chain the finances, there would still almost certainly be drop off from one episode to the next. Maybe not quite as much with Shenmue, since anyone with it at this point is pretty invested. However, one episode that people don't particularly like for whatever reason potentially puts the series back into a lurch. Maybe there's a scenario where something like that works, but it feels like it's potentially even more perilous.

JP_ said:
On the subject of Final Fantasy VII, it’s telling that the only people I’ve heard discuss the remake are adults. Kids don’t care.
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Exactly, yeah. The main take-away for me is that I don't think anyone is going to be doing any remakes of a 15+ year old game with a AAA budget again any time soon.
 
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Rydeen said:
Exactly, yeah. The main take-away for me is that I don't think anyone is going to be doing any remakes of a 15+ year old game with a AAA budget again any time soon.
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I never understood it. FF7 is an incredible game. Why remake it? What’s the point? Presumably money, but it has cost a fortune and flopped.
 
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