Shenmue voted best Sega game of all time by IGN Japan

spud1897 said:
With respect how do you know D3T weren't up to the challenge of the remaster?

What it looked like was down to opinion and how do we categorically know the thing wasn't pulled due to budget or other contributions? Also we would have never have seen it had Sega no sacked the entire QA branch in the UK so a disgruntled staff member leaked it.

The ports themselves have their issues but they work and were worse upon release for sure. I think jumping to conclusions about being up to the task, without knowing the ins and outs of the development is a little unfair.

Sega definitely took the cheap option, they could also have patched the games more after. Also listen to Adam Koralik on the Shenmue AM2 Podcast, they discuss the HD ports and it's explained why they released in the the state that they did. Whether that's 100% true or not is up for debate given that Steam got patches first and not one larger patched one like was suggested that Adam played before release.

I get the impression they were asked to do a remaster, the project was pulled and the remaining time used to port the games over to work on ps4 etc. Whether they had long enough to do that (rumours are 1 year) is up for debate and Sega didn't want to spend more to make sure they were ported well. So if anything the state of the ports is down to developer and contractor not one singular issue.
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I think it was the digital foundry video that told us they had about 50% of S1 done and 20% of S2 after two years of working on the remaster, when Sega finally pulled the plug on the project and cut it down to a mere port. Sega knew that S3 was going to release in 2018 or 2019 so they surely couldn't afford giving d3t an 8 year development cycle for the remasters.

If it took d3t two years to finish 50% of the smaller one of the two games, Sega were probably right to assume that the project was too big for d3t in terms of scope. Sure, Sega could have paid them so they could have staffed up but if Sega wouldn't have taken the cheap route, d3t would have never gotten the project. It would have been done internally if money hadn't been an issue.
 
There's a lot of presumptions there...

I'm glad they kept them in the Dreamcast engine, personally. Got a soft spot there for 6th gen in general. MGS was best on PS2, for another example. Hell, i still want Shenmue 3 running in the original engine, too!
 
xatruio said:
I'm glad they kept them in the Dreamcast engine, personally.
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Same, I'm not against Shenmue getting the kiwami treatment but if I had to choose between that and a perfect emulation of the Dreamcast game then I'd pick the latter every time.

The quality of the port is a contentious issue and the circumstance of how that came to be is far from clear but I am confident in saying that the graphical presentation of the re-release isn't what holds it back from being more widely embraced.

The game had niche appeal back when other AAA titles had graphics of this level

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xatruio said:
Hell, i still want Shenmue 3 running in the original engine, too!
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I actually wish they'd doubled down on appealing solely to existing fans and continued the Dreamcast level graphics/art style.

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Bambi said:
I actually wish they'd doubled down on appealing solely to existing fans and continued the Dreamcast level graphics/art style.
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Outside marketing and commercial concerns, I think one of the biggest issues was the original games engine, especially Chapter 1 was notoriously complicated as you had all these bespoke commands for various functions and I recall one modder talking about the engine being held together by strings and duct tape.

Obviously Shenmue 2 was ported to more modern machine but I think the underlying coding and language was obviously archaic by the time of Shenmue 3 development so if they couldn’t find developers who understand that old coding or couldn’t keep the original engine as it wasn't designed with modern machines in mind, why hold on at that point?

Don’t get me wrong I love the original games presentation but I think ultimately they picked right option.
 
hyo_razuki said:
I actually wish they'd doubled down on appealing solely to existing fans and continued the Dreamcast level graphics/art style.
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I think I remember Cedric Biscay saying at one point that in an ideal world he would have actually preferred to have had Shenmue 3 developed on the Dreamcast, but, naturally, the cost to do so would have outweight the demand.
 
Sonoshee said:
I think I remember Cedric Biscay saying at one point that in an ideal world he would have actually preferred to have had Shenmue 3 developed on the Dreamcast, but, naturally, the cost to do so would have outweight the demand.
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He's really one of the good ones, isn't he. That would have been my dream scenario.
 
This is really good for the series after such an hiatus and being dead for over 18 years for it to bounce back and be called a best series of all time in Japan of all places where a lot of people were not into Shenmue like that. I love this game series I may even by another copy of Shenmue 1 and 2 and Shenmue III to support the series.
 
tomboz said:
This is a common misconception. It’s as popular here as it is anywhere else. It also helps that Esra Krabbe is a huge Shenmue fan who has a very good working relationship with Yu Suzuki.
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Yeah no idea why people say Shenmue isn't popular in Japan.

I had a rant about it a while back
 
tomboz said:
This is a common misconception. It’s as popular here as it is anywhere else. It also helps that Esra Krabbe is a huge Shenmue fan who has a very good working relationship with Yu Suzuki.
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lavrentis said:
Yeah no idea why people say Shenmue isn't popular in Japan.

I had a rant about it a while back
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Shenmue 3 only sold 17,857 its first week in Japan. I saw Adam Koralik talking about this in one of his videos. On release day Adam Koralik and some others went around to different gaming stores in Tokyo and barely saw any copies. I think he said most places only had 3 or 4 copies.

TBH though I did the same thing in the US on release day and I never saw physical copies on the shelves. Maybe 3 copies here and there at a GameStop.
 
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BruceWayne911 said:
Shenmue 3 only sold 17,857 its first week in Japan. I saw Adam Koralik talking about this in one of his videos. On release day Adam Koralik and some others went around to different gaming stores in Tokyo and barely saw any copies. I think he said most places only had 3 or 4 copies.

TBH though I did the same thing in the US on release day and I never saw physical copies on the shelves. Maybe 3 copies here and there at a GameStop.
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I think its just Japanese social media is just invisible to us westerners so we assume they don't know about it but people do like Shenmue there I believe.
 
BruceWayne911 said:
Shenmue 3 only sold 17,857 its first week in Japan. I saw Adam Koralik talking about this in one of his videos. On release day Adam Koralik and some others went around to different gaming stores in Tokyo and barely saw any copies. I think he said most places only had 3 or 4 copies.

TBH though I did the same thing in the US on release day and I never saw physical copies on the shelves. Maybe 3 copies here and there at a GameStop.
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I mean, that’s nearly four times as many week 1 sales as in the UK which is often considered a Shenmue fan hotspot. I think Japanese sales of both Shenmue HD and Shenmue 3 accounted for about 1/4 of all sales, which is pretty good considering mobile gaming and the switch probably make up about 95% of all game sales here.

For what it’s worth, I went to a few different places around Tokyo in the week prior to release in the hope of picking up an early copy of the game and pretty much every game shop I went to had copies on the shelves with some even having mini displays with standees, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in what AK says.

Don’t get me wrong, Shenmue is not massive here, but as I said; I think it’s as popular here as it is anywhere else in the world.
 
Aren't console game sales generally pretty low nowadays in Japan, with the exception of AAA releases?
 
mjqjazzbar said:
Aren't console game sales generally pretty low nowadays in Japan, with the exception of AAA releases?
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Switch sales are pretty massive here, but aside from that, the console market is pretty weak. Even some of the big AAA releases barely make a dent in the chart (although strangely you do see the PS4 version outselling the switch version when it comes to certain multi-platform releases).

Hopefully the PS5 will reinvigorate the market.
 
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