What is your estimated global sales of shenmue 3

It won’t do great, at least at first. I’d be shocked if it got in the top 10 games sold for the month on the NPD charts. Looking at what is coming out November Shenmue III is fighting with a lot of stuff for shelf space.

Luigi’s Mansion 3 (October 31st but will sell big throughout November)
Mario & Sonic at the Olympics
Red Dead 2 on PC (Will be huge like every Rockstar game when it finally comes to PC)
Death Stranding
Need For Speed Heat
Pokemon
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

No matter what people think of these games they’re all big sellers and will outsell Shenmue III. Throw in the fact Call of Duty, Madden, Minecraft and GTAV all make the top of the charts every month Shenmue III getting even in the top 10 would be amazing. Control came out in August and didn’t even make the top 20 and was in sales straight away.

It’s a shame they didn’t hit the August date as they had a lot less competition. All these games will push Shenmue 3 off shelves in the lead up to Christmas. Parents will buy their kids popular things and then you have January when nothing comes out. Then we lead right into Last of Us 2 and FFVII Remake. I honestly think the game has shot itself in the foot.

Developers make less then $10 per game sold at $60. This game also has Sony, Sega, Shibuya, Deep Silver and possibly Epic all waiting for a cut as well as YS Net, games normally have one publisher not 5 companies getting a cut. 1 million copies where you make $10 per copy only gets you $10 million and the budget is well over that (bare in mind I rounded up to $10 per copy it’s actually less). The game would probably need to sell about 2 million to be a success. Our only hope is that the money Epic threw their way is big like it has been for other games.
 
The launch week and then the longevity of its tail end will be it's biggest advantage. The fans will make sure of that since we did it for s1&2, we can do it for s3 knowing its a full-fledge game with meat loads of deep secrets waiting to be unraveled.
 
There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic.

First, Shenmue 3 doesn’t have to sell tremendously well for the team to be able to make Shenmue4
(Even tho, the more the better). That’s an important point if you just want the series to continue.

Second, most of the games releasing in November don’t have audiences that overlap that much with
Shenmue 3's.
Of the ones who do, Red Dead 2 has been out for a year in the console market, wich is the biggest chunk
of Shenmue3's audience.
Death Stranding is the main competitor here imo, being a new adventure action game, but the 11 days
between the two games (two weekends) might very well be enough for most gamers to finish it
and look forward to the next big thing (Shenmue3)

Third, Shenmue 3 will have a lot of hype before launch. And we have to help raise the hype even more on socials
and stuff.
By being this long dormant series that broke KS records, Shenmue3 will make a lot of noise on the release.

And fourth, we see all the time small and unhearded before franchises that sell crazy numbers with no apparent reason.
Some even published by Deep Silver! Why wouldn’t shenmue3 wich is a way bigger franschise than many of those, sell
that poorly? (...)

If Shenmue 3 reaches 1 million, it will be a big victory! And it definitely can do it imo.
But we don’t need that much!
Imagine we cross 500k or 600k in sales. That would be more than enough for Deep Silver and all the involved ones
to break even and make good profit.
Deep Silver will no doubt jump in again and help fund Shenmue4. Or EVEN SEGA who knows!

But lastly. The main factor that will determine Shenmue 3 sales and overall success, is it own quality as a game.
Good reviews move a TON of sales.
If Shenmue 3 ends up being a gem, praised by most sites as a good game that you should play , surprising reviewers
ang getting good scores overall, many will jump in. Even if they never heard or played any Shenmue game before.
Who wouldn’t be excited for a brand new, kung fu adventure, with a fantastic setting, big and good sense of progression,
interestng and mysterious story, with toons of cameos and easter eggs?! Specially if the game is a 8 or a 9!
Reviews will be key imo.
 
My last concern is, can it attract a newer and younger audience? A core majority of Shenmue’s audience are in their thirties who grew up with the original first two. Most of us were teenagers when they came out.
 
I feel we are greatly underestimating how little shenmue 3 needs to sell to be a success, yes its true the game likely will make back its money cause of it being mostly covered by the kickstarter and epic games deal. But making back its money with a massive handicap isn't gonna be the same as providing assurance for future investors to put forth the money for a 4th and 5th entry.
 
RyoHazuki84 said:
The moment that whole thing thing started, I felt that PC can no longer pull the whole master race card.
Click to expand...
Look, at least for the games I wanted. PC has what consoles never will. They can add Skyrim mods from a pathetic workshop. They'll never be able to add Vilja. Or so many other mods that add so much to the game. That's just Skyrim, PC games have mods even for the ones not supporting mods, all making them way better. If that's a master race, fine. Any PC game is better cause it's on PC, not some dumb launcher that stole the market for a while by forcing the likes of me to activate Skyrim in 2011 on Steam after my DVD came by mail. If I knew, I'd just download it there. Which is what the Steam priests are now faulting Epic for.
 
RyoHazuki84 said:
My last concern is, can it attract a newer and younger audience? A core majority of Shenmue’s audience are in their thirties who grew up with the original first two. Most of us were teenagers when they came out.
Click to expand...
At least on YouTube I saw 3 examples. All born when it launched, or after. They are interested in playing 1&2 also. More than 3 really, like 10 times I saw it there.
 
I’ll admit inthe end, I largely don’t care about PC gaming because I’ve never been a PC gamer. Most of its killer apps largely don’t appeal to me.
 
A thought just occured to me today. I have bought 4 copies of the game. 3 from Kickstarter and 1 from Limited Run. As I live in the UK, none of my copies will go towards the UK sale. Do you think this will skew the sales somewhat? I read this week that the new Yooka Laylee and Concrete Genie only just scraped into the top 40 last week, so that does worry me somewhat.

When you have awful websites like 'One Angry Gamer' posting any old shit about Shenmue III (balance is something so much out of their grasp, that Destructoid seem like the voice of reason), I can almost see the "FLOP" headlines come along. Of course, this is based on physical sales and i'm certain that Shenmue III will sell very well (it has a lot going for it), but when digital sales are a closely guarded secret, it does make things harder to gauge.
 
I'd say they've factored in the Kickstarter copies into their sales projections.

If it's any consolation I've got 4 copies preordered from UK retailers :)

I expect this game to do quite well here. The special editions are out of stock everywhere.

It's number 11 in the best buy preorders list for the US

Pix n Love edition has just sold out, and we're still over a month away.. and I really don't rate that version even as a hardcore fan...that said... If there was no demand.... They wouldn't keep making them.

The release date is perfect now. I see a lot of story focused gamers buying death stranding on day 1 and trading it for the next big release. Shenmue is the only one left before Xmas.

It's gonna do fine. If Darksiders 3 can sell enough copies to continue the franchise (deep silver said they would be happy with 100k) then Shenmue 3 has no problems
 
Down by Law said:
I'd say they've factored in the Kickstarter copies into their sales projections.

If it's any consolation I've got 4 copies preordered from UK retailers :)

I expect this game to do quite well here. The special editions are out of stock everywhere.

It's number 11 in the best buy preorders list for the US

Pix n Love edition has just sold out, and we're still over a month away.. and I really don't rate that version even as a hardcore fan...that said... If there was no demand.... They wouldn't keep making them.

The release date is perfect now. I see a lot of story focused gamers buying death stranding on day 1 and trading it for the next big release. Shenmue is the only one left before Xmas.

It's gonna do fine. If Darksiders 3 can sell enough copies to continue the franchise (deep silver said they would be happy with 100k) then Shenmue 3 has no problems
Click to expand...


I don't think they'll count the KS(not as early sales anyone, but later on, they'll probally add that to how many copies were printed/to how successful it was), but otherwise I agree with everything you said.

Yea people don't seem to understand, Shenmue games are a hell of a lot less niche, then many games coming out today, yet still get labeled successes.
 
bcdcdude said:
A thought just occured to me today. I have bought 4 copies of the game. 3 from Kickstarter and 1 from Limited Run. As I live in the UK, none of my copies will go towards the UK sale. Do you think this will skew the sales somewhat? I read this week that the new Yooka Laylee and Concrete Genie only just scraped into the top 40 last week, so that does worry me somewhat.

When you have awful websites like 'One Angry Gamer' posting any old shit about Shenmue III (balance is something so much out of their grasp, that Destructoid seem like the voice of reason), I can almost see the "FLOP" headlines come along. Of course, this is based on physical sales and i'm certain that Shenmue III will sell very well (it has a lot going for it), but when digital sales are a closely guarded secret, it does make things harder to gauge.
Click to expand...
Digital is I think how it'll sell the most. 85 million PC platform accounts VS 12 million for Shenmue 1 on the DC, and not all of those even got any. Add PS4, you get much more than 1999-2001.
 
Zoltor said:
I don't think they'll count the KS(not as early sales anyone, but later on, they'll probally add that to how many copies were printed/to how successful it was), but otherwise I agree with everything you said.

Yea people don't seem to understand, Shenmue games are a hell of a lot less niche, then many games coming out today, yet still get labeled successes.
Click to expand...
OMG I've tried Ancestors for 2 days... Refund is good only if you play 2 hours, I tried. Some parts are done well, overall the actions are crap. Locales are good, climbing and all is good. I don't ever want to hear about Shenmue, even Shenmue 1 being clunky after this crap. I got fooled cause I love AC Odyssey. This is not one, some parts are maybe. Talk about niche. That's niche right there. The "poor" grade is well deserved. I might try to get it later, but it's like work. Shenmue 3 demo was all fun, combat was great. All naysayers want VF3 redone exactly to be happy, it's not gonna happen. Those fairly judging combat enjoy it. It should outsell 1&2. It's better than 1&2 in many ways.
 
Dmitriy1 said:
OMG I've tried Ancestors for 2 days... Refund is good only if you play 2 hours, I tried. Some parts are done well, overall the actions are crap. Locales are good, climbing and all is good. I don't ever want to hear about Shenmue, even Shenmue 1 being clunky after this crap. I got fooled cause I love AC Odyssey. This is not one, some parts are maybe. Talk about niche. That's niche right there. The "poor" grade is well deserved. I might try to get it later, but it's like work. Shenmue 3 demo was all fun, combat was great. All naysayers want VF3 redone exactly to be happy, it's not gonna happen. Those fairly judging combat enjoy it. It should outsell 1&2. It's better than 1&2 in many ways.
Click to expand...


Lol so true.

Well with the combay, after seeing how all the neysayers word things, they all have one thing in common, they don't realize that moves are purposely harder to pull off at lower levels, and as they, and you lv up, the imputs become more forgiving.

Then you have fools associating there being no dedicated throws with it not using the VF3 or whatnot engine. First of all, there are "a few throw moves", they just don't have their own dedicated button or classification, and 2, the battle engine has nothing to do with it, because at the end of the day someone would have to put extra work coding in the moves.
 
What do you guys think it'll do in China?

If they can leverage their partnership with Epic Games, who have Tencent as a major(majority?) investor, to get even a small amount of push in China it could mean big boost to the sales.
 
You won't believe this, but it's in China that Epic can't sell. They made a deal with another company, China fun, or whatever to sell there. But yeah, obviously, that's where Shenmue 2 and 3 would sell the most you'd think. They are mainly into Chinese culture and so on, 3 even more than 2.
 
Dmitriy1 said:
You won't believe this, but it's in China that Epic can't sell. They made a deal with another company, China fun, or whatever to sell there. But yeah, obviously, that's where Shenmue 2 and 3 would sell the most you'd think. They are mainly into Chinese culture and so on, 3 even more than 2.
Click to expand...


It's even more then that though, Shenmue 2, 3, and the rest of the series, plays out exactly like a wuxia series, just set in more modern times. Wuxia series make up the meat, and potatoes of Chinese TV shows(traditionally made up most of their movies as well), so you would think a game that masterfully pulls such off like the Shenmue franchise, would be insanely big in China(although that's if they can get PCs that can run this there, that's the big challenge right there).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top