Vague speculation from insider on problems with this port...

[Sappharad]

I think he's referring to disappointing sales. The port itself is excellent. I'd say it's the gold standard of all the Dreamcast updates.

Off topic, but there were issues with that port as well. I complained to them to deaf ears about the fact that they re-licensed one of the music tracks from the original Japanese version that wasn't included in the original western release but never actually put it in the re-release. It was listed in their post announcing the music prior to release so someone messed up there.

As far as problems go, the game had framerate issues at launch especially in areas where the original game suffered like Bantam Street. It wasn't until the Vita version got delayed where things started to turn around. When the game finally launched on Vita, it had a flawless framerate - it ran better than the PS3 port despite being on portable hardware with a fraction of the power. The PS3 version would eventually get a patch to make it as good as Vita, but at launch there were indeed problems. The PC port also had stability problems where it could randomly crash between levels; speedrunners seem to be most affected by that.

But yeah, it probably didn't sell well. They also gave the Steam version away for free during a promotion a couple years ago.

 

[Reprise]

I think he's referring to disappointing sales. The port itself is excellent. I'd say it's the gold standard of all the Dreamcast updates.

Yeah, the Jet Set Radio HD port is amazing. It's a shame we didn't get a physical collection with a port of Jet Set Radio Future too.

 

[mjqjazzbar]

From the PC Gamer interview with a member of D3T:

Working on a Japanese-developed game must’ve been tricky too...

The original code was written by Japanese developers, so all the comments are in Japanese. We used Google Translate a lot to try and get a handle on what the code was doing, but it’s often not clear. Shenmue 1 had the additional problem for us that the game logic was written in a separate scripting language and ALL the function names and variables were in Japanese too!

Interestingly, we found that once the resolution was increased existing bugs became more apparent. There’s also the issue of widescreen, with the game being designed to run in a 4:3 ratio. This meant many of the cutscenes didn’t work correctly, so we had to add black bars at the sides.

The original games were technical marvels and they were highly tuned for the specific hardware platforms, which didn’t give us as much performance headroom as we were expecting, given their age.

Were there any quirks of the Dreamcast hardware that made getting the first game working on PC especially difficult?

The Dreamcast hardware had some features which would prove difficult to emulate, particularly the audio and graphics systems.

The audio on the Dreamcast is mainly driven by a completely different chip to the main CPU. This chip is loaded with different programs defined by the original developer, specifying things such as loop points, reverb, volumes, envelopes, etc. We didn’t have the source data for this, which meant a lot of reverse engineering to get it sounding okay.

Regarding the graphics, the Dreamcast GPU had some powerful and unique features not found on modern cards. The two features which caused us the most headaches were the modifier volumes used for shadows and light volumes, and the ability to sort transparent geometry on a per pixel level. The lack of modifier volumes on our target platforms led us to use a hybrid stencil shadow approach similar to the Xbox version of Shenmue 2. This is different to the original and artefacts can occasionally be seen because of this.

Sega threw a very complicated game with Japanese documentation to a small team in the UK with no Japanese fluent members. Nothing controversial; just Sega being Sega.

 

[Zoyous]

From the PC Gamer interview with a member of D3T:



Sega threw a very complicated game with Japanese documentation to a small team in the UK with no Japanese fluent members. Nothing controversial; just Sega being Sega.

I think the quote is very informative, so thank you for that. But the "I hate Sega" shtick is really boring. Maybe put it in your avatar picture so you don't have to keep repeating it in your posts. In reality, someone at Sega asked someone at d3t, "Can you do this in this amount of time for this amount of money?" and someone at d3t said "Yes."

 

[punkmanced]

I think the quote is very informative, so thank you for that. But the "I hate Sega" shtick is really boring. Maybe put it in your avatar picture so you don't have to keep repeating it in your posts. In reality, someone at Sega asked someone at d3t, "Can you do this in this amount of time for this amount of money?" and someone at d3t said "Yes."

^ Sure, but then again it's not like they couldn't have found a better alternative than "Google Translate".
They mentioned they visited the Shenmue Dojo very frequently. Assuming they were short on cash and couldn't spare the limited funds required to bring on a Japanese buddy to translate the more difficult parts, then someone like Switch probably would've been happy to help them out.

 

[Zoyous]

^ Sure, but then again it's not like they couldn't have found a better alternative than "Google Translate".
They mentioned they visited the Shenmue Dojo very frequently. Assuming they were short on cash and couldn't spare the limited funds required to bring on a Japanese buddy to translate the more difficult parts, then someone like Switch probably would've been happy to help them out.

That sounds good, but it's probably not something the legal department would allow a company to do for a commercial project that is going to be generating millions of dollars, bringing in an enthusiast for pro bono work. To me, it seems like something along these lines transpired: some parties within Sega Europe spearheaded this project because no other part of Sega was interested in it. I suspect it was even a challenge getting it greenlit internally at Sega Europe, much less getting Sega of Japan on board. They were able to get it greenlit, but no one at Sega Europe really had detailed technical knowledge of the Shenmue source code(s) or any documentation. They put out feelers for developers to take on the project and D3T was able to make a bid that fit with the time frame and budget. Then, when actually diving into the project, the whole picture becomes more and more clear, with unforeseen challenges cropping up here and there.

Maybe it's banal and obvious, but there's no sinister drama or deception or betrayal of fans going on or anything like that. Each party has acted in good faith, worked hard and done their best with a very uniquely challenging project, within a limited budget and a limited amount of time. And clearly they're still working on it. So all of the hyperbolic fury about everything that isn't perfect yet and wasn't perfect on the release date is really misguided and unfortunate.

One thing that I'm reminded of is the Western localization of Yakuza 3. There were people upset about the Western version having hostess clubs removed and a few other minigames that involved custom graphics and/or Japanese pop cultural references that couldn't be quickly, easily, or cheaply replaced. So Sega West removed those aspects of the game, and some consumers were pissed. But the thing was, if those cuts weren't made, Yakuza 3 would never have seen the light of day outside of Japan. A small team within Sega West knew there was a small but devoted Western audience and found a little bit of time and a little bit of budget to bring Yakuza 3 over at the end of the fiscal year. It wasn't a perfect solution but it kept the series alive and today Yakuza has been selling stronger with every Western release. Still, that small group of people within Sega who made that happen had to deal with the same kind of hyperbolic antics from forum-goers in those days as well. It's unfortunate and I feel it's misguided because it's just venting anger in an echo chamber with the same handful of community members repeating themselves and each other, and somehow convincing themselves that this is actually a helpful activity, that this is actually what will make something happen. Like the lads at D3T were about to cut into their forklift cake and then saw that there are five furious people on a forum or on Twitter and were like, "Blimey, we'd better fix this mess!"

 

[punkmanced]

That sounds good, but it's probably not something the legal department would allow a company to do for a commercial project that is going to be generating millions of dollars, bringing in an enthusiast for pro bono work.

Well, when you phrase it like that…
Realistically though, I think it’s more about signing that dotted line on the NDA/ contract as opposed to anything else. Had D3T officially brought someone like Switch on board as a freelancer to help them gain a better understanding of some of the more intricate project notes, why would Sega complain? Let’s face it, anything sounds better than “Nah we’re good, we’ve got Google Translate dawg!”. Plus, it could always have been interesting from a PR perspective, ie a ‘Bringing the fans along on the adventure’ type of thing, in the same way that they advertised Nocon Kid joining the Shenmue 3 team.
Oh well...

They put out feelers for developers to take on the project and D3T was able to make a bid that fit with the time frame and budget. Then, when actually diving into the project, the whole picture becomes more and more clear, with unforeseen challenges cropping up here and there.

I agree that this is the most probable scenario. Time and budget. Whatever shortcomings the ports have are a direct consequence of a lack of either or both.

Like the lads at D3T were about to cut into their forklift cake and then saw that there are five furious people on a forum or on Twitter and were like, "Blimey, we'd better fix this mess!"

Haha! Well that's exactly what happened. Stupid forklift cake caused the damn patch delays!

 

[lyris1]

Assuming they were short on cash and couldn't spare the limited funds required to bring on a Japanese buddy to translate the more difficult parts, then someone like Switch probably would've been happy to help them out.

As Zoyous alluded to... I'm sure there are many, many irritating employment laws and pieces of red tape that would prevent that happening.

Even if that weren't an issue: companies are hesitant to bring fans on in such a direct role. That's a relationship that can turn sour if things don't go to plan. Ultimately not a good idea.

 

[Henry Spencer]

Still feel that SEGA could have contracted in one of the original programming staff in to help with understanding the code (I know one of you is going to say "added cost" but so is patching the game after release, so it all works in roundabouts). Must have been a nightmare for D3T. I definitely side with them than SEGA over this.

 

[Zoyous]

Still feel that SEGA could have contracted in one of the original programming staff in to help with understanding the code

Which one? Sega Retro lists about 85 programmers. How much would one of them know about the entire game program, even at the time? And how much would they remember almost 20 years later - many of them having worked on multiple other projects since then, and assuming the ones they could reach were not otherwise working full time on something else already?

This is just armchair quarterbacking transposed to game development. If I was Matt Ryan, I would have thrown that pass so Julio Jones could catch it.

 

[Dietsoap]

Probably something to do with Sega being cheap. Guarantee the mods shut this down though. Only sunshine-pumping conspiracies are allowed.

This is what I suspect. Or more specifically, that Sega forced D3T to give them something to print way too early, with complete disregard for the state the game was in.

 

[catonkatonk]

(I know one of you is going to say "added cost" but so is patching the game after release, so it all works in roundabouts).

There's no way this port would have taken three years if:
D3T were provided with Dreamcast's libraries.
D3T were provided with a translator.
D3T were provided with the digits of someone who worked on the project (if, for no other reason, than to interpret the comments).

Which would have saved Sega money in the long run.
The fact that this didn't happen implies to me that Sega Europe is responsible for the re-release and had no help whatsoever from Sega Japan.
Even something like emulating the MIDI processing... How many other Dreamcast ports have Sega done? You're telling me they don't already have an emulator for Dreamcast's sound processing chip? Come on.

 

[xatruio]

Shenmue is an extremely convoluted engine. 3 years sounds fairly believable to me.

 

[Zoyous]

Even something like emulating the MIDI processing... How many other Dreamcast ports have Sega done? You're telling me they don't already have an emulator for Dreamcast's sound processing chip? Come on.

The ones that I can think used pre-recorded soundtracks. Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, Crazy Taxi... I don't know about Sega Bass Fishing or whatever fishing game it was. Any others?

 

[catonkatonk]

Sonic Adventure.

 

[Zoyous]

Ah yeah! Who handled that port? Are they still around?

 

[mjqjazzbar]

There’s some interesting information over at Resetera about how these types of ports of Japanese games are handled almost exclusively by Western companies. I also understand about a dozen people, at most, worked on porting this game that over 200 people had their hands on.

I’ve kind of come around to the idea that Sega gave D3T a fairly impossible task. In light of that, I do think they did an admirable job and I hope they can get both games running to 99% of their potential. I know there will always be issues, but even the originals have their glitches and oddities.

 

[Superrayman3]

There’s some interesting information over at Resetera about how these types of ports of Japanese games are handled almost exclusively by Western companies. I also understand about a dozen people, at most, worked on porting this game that over 200 people had their hands on.

Having western developers develop ports of older Japanese games in and of itself isn't a bad thing, the problem lies in the fact that the original Japanese company responsible for the original version (in this case SOJ) offered little to no assistance to d3t during the development at all (I mean at the very least give the team a translator fluent in Japanese so the team working on the project can get a better grasp of what the code is doing and how everything works), from what I've read it sounds like SOJ simply handed off the source code to d3t and after that didn't bother to assist the team in any way (they probably are helping out now for the Japanese release but my point is SOJ should have been more involved with this from the very beginning, and now because of SOJ's complete incompetence or negligence regarding the complexity of this project IDK which one it is, d3t are now facing the undeserved ire of passionate fans).

 

[B-Man]

The ones that I can think used pre-recorded soundtracks. Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, Crazy Taxi... I don't know about Sega Bass Fishing or whatever fishing game it was. Any others?

True, but there are free Dreamcast emulators available for download that do a better job at emulating the MIDI processing.

Also, how did Sega/Microsoft do such a fine job on the original Xbox back in 2002 if it's so difficult? The music in Shenmue IIx is even quite accurate to the Dreamcast version when it's being emulated on the freaking Xbox 360. So, there's no valid reason that these ports should have ended up with such music issues if they had been handled correctly.

 

[orient]

Also, how did Sega/Microsoft do such a fine job on the original Xbox back in 2002 if it's so difficult?

Trolling or...? Are you honestly confused as to why it would be harder for a completely different team (at a fraction of the size), 17 years later, with zero access to the original dev team, and missing code, to port the game to not 1 but 3 modern, 64-bit platforms?

*edit* Removed unnecessary comment.