What is your estimated global sales of shenmue 3

[mjqjazzbar]

It's pretty clear Shenmue 3 didn't set the charts on fire, but it's still one of the highest grossing crowdfunded games of all time. In fact, it may still be the highest grossing video game on Kickstarter. That's something... But it's clear to me Shenmue 3 likely didn't crack half a million worldwide, based on the data that is available. That is much less than I originally anticipated, but the lukewarm reviews, nonstop smear campaign against the game and Kickstarter, and somewhat poor release date didn't help.

 

[Van Joel Sandwich]

All we got from them was that the game did "fine" (Lars Wingford, CEO of Embracer Group who owns Deep Silver.)
He also acknowledged that it was a niche title.
As we now know from Cedric, they are creating promotional materials for S4 to show to potential publishers. From that it's clear that either 1) DS weren't actually satisfied enough with the sales of S3 to put up funding for S4 or 2) YSNet/Cedric didn't want to link up with them again after S3, for whatever reason(s).
I think this is most likely where the anime will come in though, help drum up some more interest, which is always a good thing.

makes sense.
It has to be one of the two.

 

[Jesse]

The game definitely didn't sell a million which is surprising to me because I personally thought it would get there being on ps4 and PC. The deep silver boss said that it sold fine and was a niche title but aside from that we haven't heard anything concrete. There's something going on behind the scenes if they're showing materials for IV to other publishers. Will be interesting to see who picks them up and when we'll hopefully get a announcement. I do wonder how the dlc did sales wise I still haven't gotten around to buying it yet unfortunately.

 

[The Wolf King]

Around 400k but a lot of those will have been at sale price

 

[danielmann861]

I'd maybe hazard a guess that it's somewhere around 500k now after the Steam release. But I'm just pulling that number out of my ass...I have no stats to show otherwise. Maybe 400k to 500k at best is what I would hope for.

It'd be interesting to see the numbers if Shenmue IV happens. Especially since there probably won't be a Kickstarter. I mean, we have to remember that Shenmue III already had what? 7 million dollars made by Kickstarter before hand. I don't know. I'd be curious to see the numbers on a Shenmue IV that is fully funded by a publisher. That's the real question for me.

 

[WuyingRen]

With Epic having given it away last week, there’s no way that there aren’t at least a million copies of the game in circulation now. Sadly, I’d wager that more than half of those sold for $15 or less.

 

[spud1897]

With Epic having given it away last week, there’s no way that there aren’t at least a million copies of the game in circulation now. Sadly, I’d wager that more than half of those sold for $15 or less.

Well it did break the Epic store, among other things as well, so I suspect you;re right.

How many actually fire it up/go on and buy the originals. They're in a Steam sale at £7 currently so you've got 3 games for that if you claimed. Insane deal.

 

[Mittens2317]

As KS pledges =/= sales, I'll say the number of Dojo accounts with >1 post x 2.5.

 

[JCJ]

With Epic having given it away last week, there’s no way that there aren’t at least a million copies of the game in circulation now. Sadly, I’d wager that more than half of those sold for $15 or less.

Maybe I'm going a bit offtopic, but although I understand the reasons why, I find it's a shame the Epic Games Store could have not make a complete giveaway and included both Shenmue III and I&II in that promo. Just as they gave away three Tomb Raider games this week, or they gave the Batman trilogy some time ago.

That would have been good in order to more people experiencing the series in order. And also so that people didn't think all the three games are at comparable terms of quality (which they aren't).

EGS has given away Sega games in the past (Sonic Mania or Total War), so I don't think that would have been impossible at all.

 

[hyo_razuki]

I know it's not 100% accurate but according to Steamspy, between 20k and 50k people own S3 which probably also includes people who got a free Steam key.

So there's that plus Epic and PS4 digital and physical sales. So yeah, I'd also estimate it between 250k and 500k units in total.

Also, doing "fine, financially" is corporate speak for "terrible, but at least we didn't lose money on it. "

 

[Spaghetti]

Steamspy is worse than "not 100% accurate" and has been for years since some backend changes fucked whatever method they have of working out the numbers.

 

[spud1897]

I know it's not 100% accurate but according to Steamspy, between 20k and 50k people own S3 which probably also includes people who got a free Steam key.

So there's that plus Epic and PS4 digital and physical sales. So yeah, I'd also estimate it between 250k and 500k units in total.

Also, doing "fine, financially" is corporate speak for "terrible, but at least we didn't lose money on it. "

I'd suggest that they made money on it. Maybe not loads but they made profit.

Also we don't know how realistic their targets were. I remember Cedric wanting 1m sales. With the greatest respect I always thought that was ambitious.

 

[Lord Tentei]

Someone have to have a number that is strange that a number has not been shared whatsoever of units sold is shocking.

 

[spud1897]

Someone have to have a number that is strange that a number has not been shared whatsoever of units sold is shocking.

It's quite common place in gaming that sales are not shared unless they hit certain milestones or sell like hotcakes.

Deep Silver and YSNET will know.

 

[Lord Tentei]

It's quite common place in gaming that sales are not shared unless they hit certain milestones or sell like hotcakes.

Deep Silver and YSNET will know.

perhaps thats one of those burning questions you have for Yu? I can't be the only one curious bout the sales of 3.

 

[Tosh]

You will only hear about sales numbers if the publisher is very confident or the numbers
exceeded their own expected numbers. And this totally depends on the size and fame of the IP.

So of course someone like Capcom is going to comment on a Resident Evil game selling 4, 5, 6 mil copies.
But the smaller the IP gets worldwide, the less likely you are going to hear anything about it.
For example the at the time PS4 exclusive game Nioh, published worldwide by Sony,
'only' reached 1 mil copies in a month. The game Outward sold 1 mil copies in a time frame of
21 months but they only commented on it because their own expected sales numbers were way below that.
(also it was multipatform and not full price)

So if were are talking about AAA, AA budget games or something between indie and AA,
it is very unlikely that there are going to be any reports until it hits at least 1 mil copies.
If you are a AAA or AA publisher, its not really worth to report something like 100 000, 300 000, 500 000
sold copies because people will remember that other way bigger IPs sold 1-3 mil copies in the same time frame
so that must be bad.
Also this is totally optional, maybe the involved parties simply have no interest in 'posing'.

 

[Guy-ManAfterAll]

Yeah, the only indication we have is Deep Silver stating that the game "sold fine", using their own words, during a meeting with investors, and that the game, without knowing how much it sold or how much it did bring to DS, was their highest grossing game from Q4 2019, which is not bad.

So, while I think the game didn't sell tremendously well for a lack of proper marketing, exclusivity being lucrative maybe, but cutting you from a part of the market and the shit storm it received during all the development stage (yes, let's remember that, since day one after the Kickstarter announcement, people were already shitting on the game), what DS stated leads me to believe that the game sold approximately within what was expected, maybe a little less or a little more, but nothing serious.

Edit : Also the fact that they are trying to develop and find a publisher for Shenmue 4 (from last we've heard), and that they are apparently confident to find a way to develop and Cedric Biscay being satisfied with the game revenues and is still involved in Shenmue 4 tells me that the total sales of the game were fairly positive. Otherwise, I think they would have simply given up at this point.

 

[mjqjazzbar]

I'd guess 500K at most, plus Kickstarter. I thought it would do better, but it didn't get that last-minute marketing push I expected + I guess the reviews were a bit rough.

 

[ShenSu]

I would be happy with 500k to be honest

Deep silver did a terrible job marketing Shenmue 3.

Most people outside the fanbase didn't even know it was released when it did

 

[Lord Tentei]

yeah we the fans were pretty much the marketing team and have been for quite awhile. But, for four they need to market it like crazy. And, using the anime would be the way to do it. Let's hope the anime will also do that for the actual games as well.