[VGC] Google Stadia backed out of deals for Yu Suzuki (and other devs like Hideo Kojima) to create exclusive games for Stadia

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Jul 27, 2018
Thought about creating a new thread for this as it could, potentially, be pretty big news (if true of course), but thought I'd post it here instead (mods can change if needed) :D.

I originally saw the article below linked from Resetera (the shithole that it is), but seems very interesting, and if true, would explain what Yu has been up to:-


TL;DR:- Apparently there was a proposal for Yu (and Kojima) to create game/games exclusively for Google Stadia. The article seems to be legit in regards to Kojima's situation, as he had an interview last summer saying that "he was pissed that a game he was working on was cancelled". Doesn't give any more info about Yu and his game though.
 
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I doubt this was Shenmue 4 ( but who knows) and I don't know the best place for this thread, but it appears that Google Stadia had deals set up with Yu Suzuki among others, to create exclusive games for Stadia.

Kinda interesting that this was even a thing before they started closing divisions. I wonder what Yu Suzuki was going to make for them?
Google‘s Stadia team cancelled dozens of projects and third-party licensing deals as part of its shift away from video game production in recent months, people with knowledge of its plans told VGC.

The Google cloud gaming division cancelled a multiplayer game led by a former Assassin’s Creed creative, a sequel to Journey to the Savage Planet and backed out of proposals for Hideo Kojima (Death Stranding) and Yu Suzuki (Outrun) to create exclusive games for Stadia, the sources said.
Sadly no other details on the Yu Suzuki project.

 
Oops, didn't see you posted this here and just made a thread for this. Sorry! Feel free to close the thread if it belongs in here.
 
Hmm. Doubt it was Shenmue 4 but it's a shame we will probably never know, whatever it was. My personal bet would have been some new arcade racing game.
 
Shenmue IV a stadia exclusive would be that kind of disaster, that would force me to boycott Shenmue...
Hopefully shit like that will never happen...
:(
 
I mean I'd play Shenmue 4 wherever it went but I do think on Stadia you would limit yourself somewhat in terms of physical editions that you can milk the fanbase for. Also how small is the user base on Stadia at the moment? I think gaming is going the way of cloud based services but I don't think Shenmue 4 could benefit from this as things stand.

If YSNET were approached then Shenmue 4 may well have been in those discussions as well as potential new IP's.

That said, with these new IP's that money could go towards a Shenmue 4 game.

I doubt much will come from this other than the deal is off but it is interesting news.
 
Yu typically makes arcade-like games, and Stadia very much feels the home for those type, almost like triple-A mobile games (ie everything Ouya wanted to be) It was likely just a one-off rather than a Shenmue entry.
 
Reset Era is full of hypocrites. Have read there many times that Shenmue is too niche for the general gaming public to care and then they guys and even maybe the same people (I am not sure about though to be honest could have been different people as well) now complain that Sony Japan studio is going to be restructured because the super niche anime games the studio made did not pay off. It is just crazy.

And interesting news. I doubt that project from Yu that was cancelled was S4 though. Maybe something arcarde like.
 
I feel like (if true) this would have been very advantageous to Yu & YSnet due to the money involved. Yu could have created a series of games similar in design to his earlier work. These games are generally: easy to understand, have easy to execute mechanics, are addictive and are very low commitment/quick to play (~3-5 minute rounds etc). This is something that would benefit Stadia, as it is very different to their current target audience of "already gamers' (people wanting to play the newest releases etc). Yu's previous games are pick up and play and could capture the more casual gamer/old audience, which might have been something that Google wanted to go after.

No doubt Google would have paid a lot of money for the above, and at the same time, Yu would have been building (not only bank) but a good working relationship with Google. Yeh sure, ideally, we don't want Shenmue IV exclusive to a Cloud platform (that just folded their own dev team mind you...) but if that's the way that we get a Shenmue IV/V, then that's the way we continue the saga!

The thing about the article that doesn't seem to line up, is that Google announced that they are closing their internal dev studios for first party games on Stadia, and that they will be refocusing the platform but targeting third party & exclusives. It's a bit strange to announce that, and then to cancel a bunch of third party games/deals/relationships.

Either way, if these proposals were in the works, one would assume that Yu would have an idea for these game/games. He might have created prototypes or at the very least, created the concepts/general ideas for the games. If the deal with Google has indeed fallen through, then these ideas/concepts can always be pitched to other platforms, so it's not all bad news :D

At the very least, Yu is out there pitching to publishers, partners & platforms trying to get shit moving, and it seems interesting that there might be more on the cards than just Shenmue!
 
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It would've helped Suzuki, but I strongly doubt it would've been Shenmue IV.

The other issue is this--no amount of money from Google or Amazon, as powerful as they are, was *ever* going to make them major players in the console space.

Most of us are older, I've worked in gaming retail, etc. No console or box by anyone other than the Big 3(Nintendo, MS and Sony) is going to be successful and they were doomed from the start, especially trying to make them "streaming boxes".

Streaming is bandwidth intensive and not enough folks have access to or can afford adequate internet to do so, as we've seen during this pandemic.
 
No console or box by anyone other than the Big 3(Nintendo, MS and Sony) is going to be successful
There was a time there was the Big Two, Nintendo and Sega, and Sony were seen as an upstart. The original Xbox was met with much pre-release skepticism and lost Microsoft billions of dollars. Nintendo was dead last with the Gamecube, then completely blew away the competition with the Wii, before having a flop with the Wii U, then meeting great success again with the Switch. Nothing is inevitable, but Google really did fuck up the Stadia in the most Google way possible. I don't have much hope for Luna, either, but there's always room for competition. There was also a time where Steam was met with universal derision from the PC crowd, and now PC gamers revolt when a game *isn't* released on the platform.
 
Sucks. Hope he at least got some money out of it.
It would've helped Suzuki, but I strongly doubt it would've been Shenmue IV.

The other issue is this--no amount of money from Google or Amazon, as powerful as they are, was *ever* going to make them major players in the console space.

Most of us are older, I've worked in gaming retail, etc. No console or box by anyone other than the Big 3(Nintendo, MS and Sony) is going to be successful and they were doomed from the start, especially trying to make them "streaming boxes".

Streaming is bandwidth intensive and not enough folks have access to or can afford adequate internet to do so, as we've seen during this pandemic.
I’m not even optimistic there will be any competition in a few years now that every console gets the same games, sans a couple exclusives here and there. Will single player games that cost millions continue to sell when every kid’s being brought up on F2P or .99 phone games?
 
I get what you're saying @Amir, but every example you stated was a company filling a gap in the market. PlayStation was a cheaper gaming system that played CDs, Microsoft was filling the space SEGA vacated (and at least some of the success the Xbox had was from this),

Nintendo's motion controls for the Wii brought in an entirely new audience, the Wii-U however was an example in how to make all the wrong decisions. The Switch was Wii-U if they'd got it right the first time.

And surely Steam only ended up where it did once Internet improved and they cornered enough of the market? They practically originated that shit, so knew what they were doing better than the majority of contenders to the throne.

Stadia meanwhile hasn't filled a gap at all. Everyone knew that MS was gonna reach for it, possibly Sony too. I mean, look, hindsight's 20/20 n all that, but they should've targeted YouTube as the platform that launched their sort-of console.

Imagine just giving it out to free for all their top money-making, Twitch-shunning game streamers. Now imagine that it was free with a YouTube Premium account (as it was for me) AS STANDARD. Then throw in a little feature where YouTube says "Oh, you like looking up videos on this game? Well here, why not fucking play it?"

A simple button in YouTube that launches the game people are watching someone livestream and marketing it like that would've been fucking genius. Hell, the controller could've been optional if they'd implemented touch controls on every Stadia title as standard.

Alas, even though they claimed it wasn't, it was marketed as a console of sorts, a competitor, and it just isn't that. Like the Wii-U, it's the victim of some poor choices. I do believe that a successor could defo do well, it just needs integration across the popular Google family of apps before it can stand on its own two feet.
 
I wonder if Suzuki-san's Famitsu New Year's comments alluded to a Stadia game?

Let's put it this way; I had no interest in a Stadia whatsoever, but if Suzuki made a game for it, it would've won me over. Begrudingly, mind~
 
Jason Schreier recently released info saying google was paying 10s of millions just to have games ported to stadia. Wonder what kind of deal Ys Net was cooking up to make original games?...


Makes me wonder if Ys would have been in a position to work on multiple games at a time.

A million questions that we'll never get answers to.
 
Welp, now that Google have closed down their own studio, the Stadia is probably going to fade out soon, so it's probably not that relevant.

Still an interesting bit of news though.
 
Shenmue IV a stadia exclusive would be that kind of disaster, that would force me to boycott Shenmue...
Hopefully shit like that will never happen...
:(
I mean I would buy and play Shenmue 4 if it was exclusivly on Samsung fridge freezers so if Google or Apple want to drop Dollar, Pound, Yen or Euro to fund it I'm all for it.

Reading the other things around the Google Stadia development teams they were being pushed to develop things that would show off Stadia's features. So I would imagine they would of hire Yu to make something a bit wacky to show off cloud features
 
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