Why did Shenmue 1 and 2 struggle to capture more of an audience?

That was the 360, the original didn't do too much better than the Gamecube, but you're still right in what you're saying. Though the Mega Drive sold more, so technically the point could still stand.

It's odd to me that Xbox did so well too, and that it became my console of choice. I reckon it's success surely has to be in large part due to the massive head start the 360 got on the 7th generation.
 
Mittens2317 said:
That was the 360, the original didn't do too much better than the Gamecube, but you're still right in what you're saying. Though the Mega Drive sold more, so technically the point could still stand.

It's odd to me that Xbox did so well too, and that it became my console of choice. I reckon it's success surely has to be in large part due to the massive head start the 360 got on the 7th generation.
Click to expand...
Ahh. Right you are. Unreliable google top answer there. Still, I think the point remains somewhat valid with 24m units.

I think the 360’s success was down to both its early start and its excellent implementation of online gaming and in that respect I do think the OG Xbox played a big part. The Dreamcast was great and all, but Xbox live out it’s online capabilities to shame.
 
spud1897 said:
Hello,

While doing an interview (to be released in the new year) I raised a question around why Shenmue (outside of the issues with the DC) didn't catch on.

Without me giving too much away the answer was very intriguing.
Click to expand...


for me, shenmues fate and the dreamcast's is so tightly intertwined, you can't remove the Dc from the equation.

times have changed but its easy to forget, shenmue was a very experimental game when it first came out and it came out on a console which had some bad PR. when i was a kid(2000) trying to explain shenmue to other kids at school was met with zero interet.

Technology /people/gamers..it's all different now.. with the internet ( youtube etc) people are more likely to make up their own mind on whether to play/buy something rather than mindlessly follow a big advertising campaign. back then (90s-earily 2000s) it seemed the playstation had a Monopoly and they killed all competition.
 
Last edited:
If they had released both games on the PS2 it would have had a chance at success.

Releasing only the sequel on the Xbox was bound to fail. Also, even if they'd released both games, the fact that it was on Xbox guaranteed a lack of Japanese sales.

The Yakuza series didn't get success in the west until later but strong japanese sales kept the series alive.

Shenmue may have had the same love from Sega that Yakuza does if they hadn't made that Microsoft deal.
 
I do wish they were at least both on XBOX, rather than only the Movie for ch1.

PS2 sure--seems logical--although how much rose tint are on our retrospective? PS2 had a convoluted architecture; wasn't until 2004/2006 when MGS3, Shadow of Colossus and Yakuza (especially Y2 had nice gfx upgrades I'm now recalling during a current play) came out when the true power was finally being taken advantage of (pardon my loose generalization, as early as 2001 with MGS2 and 2003 with The Getaway were great looking despite the difficult chipset).

Even genius magicians at AM2 might not have been able to do Shenmue justice as quickly as the conversion to x86 Pentium 3 in XBOX? Then again, they did pull of Virtua Fighter 4 looking pretty damn good on PS2 compared to NAOMI 2 within 6 months? Shenmue 2x was released 11 months after the PAL DC, with obvious evidence there was an early fork build with all the differences discovered by the community, so ~18 months development? Quite possible same amount of time on PS2 they've pulled off a good 1:1 port. Who knows... I'm rambling on a bit.
 
Last edited:
Oh it definitely would have looked worse on PS2. Just compare Yakuza to Shenmue on the Dreamcast. It's not about how it would look though. It's the fact that it would have had more exposure and more chance of success. It was the most popular console of the generation.
 
Definitely correct there, but so much of the game relies on the grandeur. My rambling there was a bit poor wording. Not necessarily gfx in terms of visuals, but all overall world and detail. Yakuza 2, not only in animation and polygons, also has a more rounded world, still not as much as Shenmue, but better than the original.

If PS2 wasn't able to handle Shenmue 2s world without breaking a sweat--ignoring the obvious money from Microsoft--xbox might've simply been easier and cheaper enough to warrant a seamless port. Feel like there must've been more expense and effort to port for PS2 in 2002, when games didn't even come close to a similar scope or even visuals until 2005ish with Yakuza 2 or Shadow of Colossus. Who knows... all wild speculation.

Wish they ported both games to either. Perhaps a mini-rebirth of porting both games as one around 2004 on PS2 was the system was finally being unlocked more, or 2002/2003 for xbox.
 
Simply put, it's a slower paced, slice of life, family drama. It deals in the everyday and the mundane. And it's very clearly foreign. And not in the 'Whoa! Japan is wacky!' sort of way. It's not 'exciting' in the traditional sense that most would connect with action games, and it showed a realistic portrayal of revenge, family duty, and passion. It also didn't include a romantic love interest in way that Westerners can connect with. Dating and coupling in Japan, when portrayed as it really is, is based on subtlety, nuance, and procedure. And it doesn't translate at all to American audiences.

I feel like the same reason mainstream audiences don't enjoy some independent cinema is the same reason mainstream gaming audiences didn't enjoy Shenmue. Drive isn't Fast and The Furious. And Shenmue isn't Yakuza. Their audiences diverge for good reason.
 
FlyBoyNights said:
Simply put, it's a slower paced, slice of life, family drama. It deals in the everyday and the mundane. And it's very clearly foreign. And not in the 'Whoa! Japan is wacky!' sort of way. It's not 'exciting' in the traditional sense that most would connect with action games, and it showed a realistic portrayal of revenge, family duty, and passion. It also didn't include a romantic love interest in way that Westerners can connect with. Dating and coupling in Japan, when portrayed as it really is, is based on subtlety, nuance, and procedure. And it doesn't translate at all to American audiences.

I feel like the same reason mainstream audiences don't enjoy some independent cinema is the same reason mainstream gaming audiences didn't enjoy Shenmue. Drive isn't Fast and The Furious. And Shenmue isn't Yakuza. Their audiences diverge for good reason.
Click to expand...
I think you touch on some good points, especially with regards to how it portrays Japan compared to its contemporaries, but the larger issue is that Shenmue is about China not Japan. I think this issue is twofold: one is that games about China are few and don't seem to be as popular as Japan or popular in general. I think that alone may be deal breaker for some. Secondly, Shenmue 1 was a dedicated game taking place entirely in Japan, which appealed to Japanophiles of which we can see many even on this forum, but then that didn't translate to the sequels which were really about China.

Your second point I disagree with and I see it a lot on here. Shenmue isn't an indie game nor was it ever meant to be niche. It was a big budget game, probably the largest or one of the largest for its time. It was always meant to be this epic adventure that appealed to the masses. I personally blame the decision to split S1 & S2 into separate games. I think that if Hong Kong was present in the first game the audience for Shenmue would be different. Not saying it would necessarily have been more successful but it might have fared a bit better.
 
hmjohnny said:
I think you touch on some good points, especially with regards to how it portrays Japan compared to its contemporaries, but the larger issue is that Shenmue is about China not Japan. I think this issue is twofold: one is that games about China are few and don't seem to be as popular as Japan or popular in general. I think that alone may be deal breaker for some. Secondly, Shenmue 1 was a dedicated game taking place entirely in Japan, which appealed to Japanophiles of which we can see many even on this forum, but then that didn't translate to the sequels which were really about China.

Your second point I disagree with and I see it a lot on here. Shenmue isn't an indie game nor was it ever meant to be niche. It was a big budget game, probably the largest or one of the largest for its time. It was always meant to be this epic adventure that appealed to the masses. I personally blame the decision to split S1 & S2 into separate games. I think that if Hong Kong was present in the first game the audience for Shenmue would be different. Not saying it would necessarily have been more successful but it might have fared a bit better.
Click to expand...
In hindsight, it seems clear that the Shenmue project intended to be mainstream, but the product they ended up releasing, albeit great, was much more suited for a limited and niche audience. In that sense, despite creating a great work from an artistic standpoint, they failed in reading the market, from a business viewpoint.

There have been other games that have surpassed its budget through the years, but I can't recall any of them not being much more "safe" in their design, being action games with shooting, and set in popular or tried-and-tested settings in mainstream media, like American cities or Fantasy/Medieval or such.

That makes us incredibly fortunate, because we've got a super-high-profile game akin to our tastes. But at the same time it should make us realize that, maybe, the cause of Shenmue constantly struggling to succeed and be completed doesn't lie on the games shortcomings (which are real, specially in III) or in the industry events like Dreamcast demise, or the Xbox exclusivity of II, or the Deep Silver/Epic debacle. Even if all that didn't exist, a slow and contemplative game with little action and no gunplay, set in realistic China would never be mainstream enough to get high budgets.
 
We should not forget around the time Shenmue came out Japan was the big deal in gaming world. Not the west. So it makes perfectly sense that Shenmue was set in Japan and China. The Asian setting should be quite compelling for an Asian audience.

The west was not the number 1 back then. It is easy to forget with the current mindset of the current gaming age but in the 90s it was the reality. I somehow miss this time. When my gaming taste is concerned I am more Japanese than western Not big fan of western games and I am not happy about the current direction gaming takes thanks thanks to these western gaming ideas and ideals.

Even back then Shenmue must have felt weird for the western gamers. You are not blowing stuff up, you do not have action nonstop. You have to be patient, wait and watch and just immerse yourself into the world.

These gameplay elements were very rare in 1990s console games. These elements could be found in many 90s point and click adventures but these adventures were rare in the late 90s on consoles. So Shenmue had not much to offer to cater the gaming needs of the 90s console gamers.

I am glad though that Shenmue is such a unique game. It is good because the gameplay features are unique.
 
Apart from the obvious reason that it was inextricably tied to the failure of the Dreamcast, it's because Shenmue does a horrible job of letting you know what it's about. The most popular big budget games (and movies) have a simple elevator pitch that they establish quickly and Shenmue initially does that very well. Even negative playthoughs of the game (Game Grumps, Funhaus etc.) are totally on board for that opening cutscene--this is going to be an epic martial arts revenge story! And then it's...not. That identity crisis of what Shenmue purports to be in its cutscenes/story vs what it's like to actually play, which extends through the entire fanbase of Shenmue up to the polarizing third installment, is, was, and will always be its Achilles heel.
 
Off the top of the head, I would say it's slow start as well as an ineffective way of marketing it, at least in the US.

My first copy of Shenmue, I bought by chance. I was going to Gamestop to buy a cheap game. The guy in front of me was getting ready to trade Shenmue in. I noticed and said "whoa, you got shenmue" and he was like "yeah, I got it as a gift, but I dont really like it. Kinda boring". So at the last minute, just before the trade, I asked if I could buy it off of him for the 25 dollars I had on me and he agreed. Of course, the dude at the register was mad and told us to take it outside.

Regarding the promotion, the commercial for the US version did a terrible job at trying to sell the game because this was that wacky/goofy 90s style of gaming commercials. I liked the commercial, but I had been sold on the game long before. But for people who may not have really read about the game and just saw the commercial, I think some people were like "the hell is this?"
 
Dehone said:
Off the top of the head, I would say it's slow start as well as an ineffective way of marketing it, at least in the US.

My first copy of Shenmue, I bought by chance. I was going to Gamestop to buy a cheap game. The guy in front of me was getting ready to trade Shenmue in. I noticed and said "whoa, you got shenmue" and he was like "yeah, I got it as a gift, but I dont really like it. Kinda boring". So at the last minute, just before the trade, I asked if I could buy it off of him for the 25 dollars I had on me and he agreed. Of course, the dude at the register was mad and told us to take it outside.

Regarding the promotion, the commercial for the US version did a terrible job at trying to sell the game because this was that wacky/goofy 90s style of gaming commercials. I liked the commercial, but I had been sold on the game long before. But for people who may not have really read about the game and just saw the commercial, I think some people were like "the hell is this?"
Click to expand...
I'd say that at the time, almost all of Sega's Dreamcast marketing was off the wall, irreverent, counterintuitive and ballsy. I think they were more concerned with setting the Dreamcast apart from the other consoles rather than effectively describing any of the titles. I really liked the approach, but I can definitely see why it didn't work for many people.
 
I checked the youtube channel. Was this from the Cedric Biscay interview? Are these interviews available on any podcasters like stitcher or sound cloud or something? I listen to tons of podcasts at work but don't have time to sit at home and have youtube on for an hour or more.

You also said in the op that you'd mention your thoughts in the next recording; what recording is that?
 
Thomasina said:
I checked the youtube channel. Was this from the Cedric Biscay interview? Are these interviews available on any podcasters like stitcher or sound cloud or something? I listen to tons of podcasts at work but don't have time to sit at home and have youtube on for an hour or more.

You also said in the op that you'd mention your thoughts in the next recording; what recording is that?
Click to expand...
Do you have access to Spotify or Anchor? They're on there and I think apple podcasts too. It was supposed to be in Ryan Paytons part 3 interview. We touched on it but it went at a tangent.
 
Thanks. I made an account on Spotify and gave the Dojo show a follow. Dojo got me to do what Joe Rogan couldn't.

A bit of confusion on my end here; I don't think anyone answered it, unless I missed it. Let me get this straight - you were going to share your personal thoughts in the 3rd Ryan Patton interview but that went off track. So which interview is this topic referring to? Who is it that gave some interesting insight and what interview can I find it in?
 
Thomasina said:
Thanks. I made an account on Spotify and gave the Dojo show a follow. Dojo got me to do what Joe Rogan couldn't.

A bit of confusion on my end here; I don't think anyone answered it, unless I missed it. Let me get this straight - you were going to share your personal thoughts in the 3rd Ryan Patton interview but that went off track. So which interview is this topic referring to? Who is it that gave some interesting insight and what interview can I find it in?
Click to expand...
Ryan Payton pt 2
 
I know I'm late to the party, but hey, I'm a busy guy and I'd like to give my two yen.

A majority of what I wanted to say has already been said, but I think there is so much more. Undeniably, open world, or FREE, was a new thing. It was an experiment that the casual gamer wasn't ready for yet. While it is "slow," the game can still be played at your own pace. It offers so much unique side content that people are still discovering to this day.

I was hyped for Shenmue the moment I saw Project Berkley at a local import store I visited when living in Arizona. I was already a fan of Virtua Fighter (since it was conceived as a Virtua Fighter RPG), and I was interested in Japan and was studying Japanese at my local high school. I read every article I could about Shenmue and how it explained it was going to change gaming as you can virtually explore nearly every part of its world and interact with every character, and how it was going to have a day/night cycle, etc. At the time, there was NOTHING like it and I was hyped. I bought the Japanese version when it came out at that local import store. I only had a year and a half of Japanese study at that time, but I did my best.

Beyond the DC userbase, Virtua Fighter wasn't that big outside of Japan and South Korea, so I think that also played a role. It was something new, but nobody knew what to make of it. Yes, GTA III opened some new avenues, but games like GTAIII treat their worlds more like a playground as opposed to a world you live and breathe in. In FFXV, its world hardly feels interactive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top