Why is Deep Silver, or whoever is managing media/publicity, still circulating old screenshots?

I know what you mean by the dates of the images, but even still it's a moot point as those models and images were approved for marketing. The patch moved slightly, the eyebrow is slightly different on this or that one, etc. Yu Suzuki decided he had bigger fish to fry rather than restocking the marketing images for each event. I think the simple answer to the original question has already been raised - because the vast majority of the available funds were devoted to development and not to marketing. Why wasn't one person assigned to getting screen captures with a free camera and stocking up the marketing images folder with new shots for each event? Because the money went to development instead and they kept that one person working on the game. Why didn't Deep Silver devote more funds to marketing? Because they're confident they can hit their projections without devoting more funds to marketing. Anyway, we're bored and waiting for more news and the game to come out, so some of these freakout threads are just going into overdrive.
 
Forklift No. 4 said:
It feels half assed. I’m still in denial about the damn box art. Like what the hell lol. Crazy because the game itself feels the exact opposite of half assed.
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Only being slightly facetious, but you can imagine that there was a discussion like: Suzuki-san, should we make both the game and the marketing materials both be 75%-assed? No, let's make the game 100%-assed and the marketing half-assed. They had to make difficult choices with a limited budget. There have been plenty of half-assed games with bullshot marketing, so I'd say they made a better decision here.
 
Deep Silver does not seem to really pay attention to this game:

- Most reactions about the box art were negative on vg online media but they kept it as it is : a very generic image with a poor composition.

2) Their reactivity on social networks is very lame. The official Shenmue 3 fb page shares information several weeks late, like for instance Yu Suzuki's trip to Germany's conference. Is the CM on a part-time job ?
3) No exciting general trailer introducing all the game's parts (exploration + battle + training + minigames) has been shown until now

I hope that Sega will be back for Shenmue 4 and will do everything the right way.
 
Zoyous said:
Only being slightly facetious, but you can imagine that there was a discussion like: Suzuki-san, should we make both the game and the marketing materials both be 75%-assed? No, let's make the game 100%-assed and the marketing half-assed. They had to make difficult choices with a limited budget. There have been plenty of half-assed games with bullshot marketing, so I'd say they made a better decision here.
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Well sure. If it had to be one or the other, they made the right decision. Who knows how it really is/was though.

It’s whatever. What’s done is done. Just want this game to do well.
 
Goro Harasaki said:
Deep Silver does not seem to really pay attention to this game:

- Most reactions about the box art were negative on vg online media but they kept it as it is : a very generic image with a poor composition.

2) Their reactivity on social networks is very lame. The official Shenmue 3 fb page shares information several weeks late, like for instance Yu Suzuki's trip to Germany's conference. Is the CM on a part-time job ?
3) No exciting general trailer introducing all the game's parts (exploration + battle + training + minigames) has been shown until now

I hope that Sega will be back for Shenmue 4 and will do everything the right way.
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1) All covers are rather mediocre nowadays. Death Stranding box was the last one to be massively criticized on social networks. Decades of marketing history seem to have led to a generic formula or people are not going to buy/notice your box on the shelves. I think the current cover is the result of something carefully thought by the leaders. Ryo and the "girl with the yellow hat shown in various medias" are highly distinctive, same for the iconic cave on the background, that's the most important for them.

3) If they keep the very best for the last two weeks, I don't see much of a problem. It's the best time to build up a desire momentum. If they act too early before the release, people might be tempted to splash money on other games the day Shenmue 3 eventually comes out. Brainwashing people when they can try the game just some days after seems a not so bad tactic to me.
 
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but on the other hand the collectors edition red box is beautiful. Also the steelbook art is very nice.

EDjx4PlXoAMlLUF.jpg
 
Because they dont care.

You can take any screenshot from the trial screenshot thread, it looks far better than they have so far.


There's litterally 0 excuses here. It'd takes 10 minutes with the unreal engine 4 console.
Maybe 30 minutes without it.

We only got 1080p compressed screenshots so far. Heck, they dont even use new screenshots nor render sometimes.

We still have old Ryo/Shenhua renders in magazines and sites.

Heck, just take a look at the boxart. Whoever is doing the marketing, well, Deep Silver, is doing the bare minimum.
 
Zoyous said:
Only being slightly facetious, but you can imagine that there was a discussion like: Suzuki-san, should we make both the game and the marketing materials both be 75%-assed? No, let's make the game 100%-assed and the marketing half-assed. They had to make difficult choices with a limited budget. There have been plenty of half-assed games with bullshot marketing, so I'd say they made a better decision here.
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Taking screenshots and sending new renders isn't a marketing budget nor decision.
If it was, that'd be 1 or 2 hours from a person's attention. 200 dollars at worst.
 
The box art has grown on me... But what hasn't is when they use pissed-off robotic 2017 Ryo and Robotic-deer-in-headlights 2017 Shenhua. Those two are still used for the profile icon of the official Shenmue III Facebook page!

Still though, the collectors edition which also is from Deep Silver looks fantastic. No idea why they couldn't put a but more effort elsewhere.
 
GhostTrick said:
Taking screenshots and sending new renders isn't a marketing budget nor decision.
If it was, that'd be 1 or 2 hours from a person's attention. 200 dollars at worst.
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I agree, the small budget should not be an excuse for everything. I saw fan-made box arts looking waaay better than the official one, as well as great fan-made atmosphere videos from the trial demo published here, and so on.
 
Yokosuka said:
I think it's just the Suzuki's way of working. Remember the Shenmue 2 DC box case, it features old model of Xuiying who was completely different from the ingame one.
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None of the models in the Shenmue 2 box art are ingame models. They're either the passport models or models that were only used for promotional material. I think the Xuiying model is the passport model.

So I don't think you can compare it to the current situation, where they're using old ingame models that look worse than the final models.
 
Gen said:
None of the models in the Shenmue 2 box art are ingame models. They're either the passport models or models that were only used for promotional material. I think the Xuiying model is the passport model.

So I don't think you can compare it to the current situation, where they're using old ingame models that look worse than the final models.
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I just checked. Ren and Joy were ingame models. Shenhua on the background was CGI. Ryo was Passport. Xiuying seems to be an older model than Passport, maybe Project Berkley CGI.
 
Let's Get Sweaty said:
You say that like they were all beating down his door with one hand while waving a blank contract in the other.
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YS Net rejected the help from Sega, Ubisoft, EA, Capcom, Microsoft,
Konami, Koei Tecmo, Tako Two, Activision and Square Enix.
YS Net had soooooo many offers but they chose a AA publisher who only made a better game possible.
What a tragedy. Lets hope Mercedes Benz or Apple can sponsor Shenmue 4.
 
Yokosuka said:
I just checked. Ren and Joy were ingame models. Shenhua on the background was CGI. Ryo was Passport. Xiuying seems to be an older model than Passport, maybe Project Berkley CGI.
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Yeah, I just took another look, I guess Ren could be the ingame model. I still think that could be the Xiuying passport model, but it's hard to tell. Her image in the manual is definitely the passport model.

I think that Joy model is actually this one:
Joy2.jpg

It's very similar to the ingame model but with a different face, and brown eyes.
 
Tosh said:
YS Net rejected the help from Sega, Ubisoft, EA, Capcom, Microsoft,
Konami, Koei Tecmo, Tako Two, Activision and Square Enix.
YS Net had soooooo many offers but they chose a AA publisher who only made a better game possible.
What a tragedy. Lets hope Mercedes Benz or Apple can sponsor Shenmue 4.
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Do you have a source confirming this?
 
Let's Get Sweaty said:
You say that like they were all beating down his door with one hand while waving a blank contract in the other.
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I believe that if Yu would have approached Nippn Ichi, the deal would have been made. Though he visited the Deep Silver offices on the advice of a friend and the rest is history.

Deep Silver isn't necessarily a bad choice, but I would have preferred a Japanese publisher.
 
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