Why kickstarter to make S4? What about SEGA?

Sput Vas Normandy

Sput Vas Normandy

There's a lot of buzz around Shenmue 4
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Oct 26, 2018
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Argentina
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Shenmue II
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Starfield
I'm sorry, I know you probably know this. But why are we speculating about a new kickstarter and not about Sega? Sega has money now, I think they can put money and workers to make Shenmue 4 maybe?

Why this is not an option?

And why Sega didn't do this with S3? I mean, I see Sega making games all the time now and probably earning a lot of money, we are not talking about the Sega completelly broken of 2003, right?
 
Sput said:
I'm sorry, I know you probably know this. But why are we speculating about a new kickstarter and not about Sega? Sega has money now, I think they can put money and workers to make Shenmue 4 maybe?

Why this is not an option?

And why Sega didn't do this with S3? I mean, I see Sega making games all the time now and probably earning a lot of money, we are not talking about the Sega completelly broken of 2003, right?
Click to expand...


Sega was acquired by Sammy Studios in 2003.
Sammy Studios primarily focused on Pachinko cabinets so they had a lot of money.
Initially Sega refused numerous times to merge with them.
At one point, Sega wanted to merge with Namco, but they refused.
Eventually, Sammy Studios won over, and this resulted in a bunch of employees quitting, Yu Suzuki himself.
Also many development studios were either restructured or disbanded.
Nagoshi, Yu Suzuki's protoge, and director of Daytona USA, Super Monkey Ball. Spikeout, Scud Race, and Planet Harriers, went on to make Yakuza which came out in 2005 for the PS2 and cost 20 million to make.
So clearly Sega had money then but it was from Sammy Studios.
And Sammy had a much more conservative business model towards releasing titles.
This is why they refused to continue Shenmue.
And that is why Yu Sukuki wasn't involved with Virtua Fighter 5, even though he stayed on as a consultant for Sega.
Why refuse Shenmue but give Yakuza 20 million which wasn't a sure fire bet?
And so since then, Sega has only focused on Sonic, Yakuza, Hatsune Miku, Phantasy Star Online, Valkyria Chronicles, Resonance of Fate, Alpha Protocol, the Initial D arcade series in Japan, a few Alien games, Bayonetta, Anarchy Reigns, Infinite Space, Football Manager and the Total War series along with a few smaller titles and the Mario vs Sonic at the Olympics crossovers.
Then a few years back, they acquired Atlus, which helped them financially a bit and give them more game library clout.
Within the last couple of years, Sega has been trying to make a comeback in terms of gaining back the respect from consumers it once had. They even went as far as to fund an indie made Sonic game (Sonic Mania).
They made Valkyria Revolution, a spin off of Valkyria Chronicles. When that didnt work, they made Valkyria Chronicles 4.
They made a new Virtual-On fighting game crossed over with the anime A Certain Magical Index, and recently, they rereleased the original games as a collection set. They also chose not to fund Bayonetta 2 and 3 though which Platinum Games had to look elsewhere for funding with Nintendo. They announced remakes of the first two Panzer Dragoon games.
They remastered Resonance of Fate. They finally released Shenmue 1 & 2 HD. They released a new Super Monkey Ball. They finally announced a localization of Phantasy Star Online 2, and they are working on a new Sakura Wars game which will be the first out of the series that they ever localized (Sakura Wars 5's localization was handeled by another company).
So there does lie a possibility for them to turn around and help Ys Net make Shenmue IV.
 
Shenmue 3 to this day was likely a horrifying prospect for SEGA. Considering how expensive the first game was to make at the time, how the sequel I dont think did much better commercially, and its not hard to figure out why they were apprehensive about the idea of ever continuing the series. Shenmue Online and that supposed city building game were also weird attempts at gauging interest in the series which didn't blow up like they wanted either.
In the meantime they had Yakuza, which while the first game was expensive to produce, they could take advantage of the fact that they could reuse so much aspects from game to game and churn them out in such a short period of time, with actors and tons of in game advertisements to do much of the heavy lifting. They dont need that much in terms of environments or attention to detail compared to the Shenmue games, or even a multi-dub either. Yakuza aiming for a slightly more adult audience also likely did wonders compared to Shenmue.
 
But I mean, Sega is not the Sega of Sammy's time. And if Shenmue get some decents sell numbers, is there a chance that Sega says "dont worry dude, I got this" and help? I don't expect 70 million dollars like Shenmue 1 & 2, but the money enough to make what YS really wants.
 
Budgiecat said:
Sega was acquired by Sammy Studios in 2003.
Sammy Studios primarily focused on Pachinko cabinets so they had a lot of money.
Initially Sega refused numerous times to merge with them.
At one point, Sega wanted to merge with Namco, but they refused.
Eventually, Sammy Studios won over, and this resulted in a bunch of employees quitting, Yu Suzuki himself.
Also many development studios were either restructured or disbanded.
Nagoshi, Yu Suzuki's protoge, and director of Daytona USA, Super Monkey Ball. Spikeout, Scud Race, and Planet Harriers, went on to make Yakuza which came out in 2005 for the PS2 and cost 20 million to make.
So clearly Sega had money then but it was from Sammy Studios.
And Sammy had a much more conservative business model towards releasing titles.
This is why they refused to continue Shenmue.
And that is why Yu Sukuki wasn't involved with Virtua Fighter 5, even though he stayed on as a consultant for Sega.
Why refuse Shenmue but give Yakuza 20 million which wasn't a sure fire bet?
And so since then, Sega has only focused on Sonic, Yakuza, Hatsune Miku, Phantasy Star Online, Valkyria Chronicles, Resonance of Fate, Alpha Protocol, the Initial D arcade series in Japan, a few Alien games, Bayonetta, Anarchy Reigns, Infinite Space, Football Manager and the Total War series along with a few smaller titles and the Mario vs Sonic at the Olympics crossovers.
Then a few years back, they acquired Atlus, which helped them financially a bit and give them more game library clout.
Within the last couple of years, Sega has been trying to make a comeback in terms of gaining back the respect from consumers it once had. They even went as far as to fund an indie made Sonic game (Sonic Mania).
They made Valkyria Revolution, a spin off of Valkyria Chronicles. When that didnt work, they made Valkyria Chronicles 4.
They made a new Virtual-On fighting game crossed over with the anime A Certain Magical Index, and recently, they rereleased the original games as a collection set. They also chose not to fund Bayonetta 2 and 3 though which Platinum Games had to look elsewhere for funding with Nintendo. They announced remakes of the first two Panzer Dragoon games.
They remastered Resonance of Fate. They finally released Shenmue 1 & 2 HD. They released a new Super Monkey Ball. They finally announced a localization of Phantasy Star Online 2, and they are working on a new Sakura Wars game which will be the first out of the series that they ever localized (Sakura Wars 5's localization was handeled by another company).
So there does lie a possibility for them to turn around and help Ys Net make Shenmue IV.
Click to expand...
You just forgot Streets of Rage 4.
I really hope this is the case. But i don't know how much of control of ShenIV, Yu would have.
 
I agree, Sput. Suggesting another Kickstarter at this point is absurd. Sega is most certainly a possibility, if Shenmue III sells well enough especially. It's become clear to me that Sega have taken notice of Shenmue's potential over the past few years anyway. And correct me if I'm wrong, but Hajime Satomi's son, Haruki is now in charge of the company. Haruki, as a Dreamcast and Yu Suzuki fan himself, knows what's up, to put it simply. He's not some out of touch old man who heard Shenmue lost money way back when, under circumstances that are irrelevant today, and decided it's not worth looking at.

Aside from that, why aren't we talking about the profits from Shenmue III alone? Who says we'd need Sega or a Kickstarter? Shenmue III seems to be holding up well in sales right now. I'm in no ways claiming to be an expert, but if it sells even near the "realistic" number of 500,000, shouldn't there be more than enough profit to fund Shenmue IV? That's not counting the money they received from Epic. Personally, I see absolutely no reason to worry. They have created a fantastic game on a modest budget already, and I can only assume more can be done for even less from here on out. Keep in mind when they started out, they had no experience with the Unreal Engine and had to create everything from scratch. Now we have a faithful recreation of the Shenmue engine just waiting for more games to be made on it.
 
ShinChuck said:
I think that's really the key. Shenmue 3 was the big roadblock, but it's here, the foundation is in place. I think Shenmue IV is likely coming without much drama!
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With Sega or without Sega?
 
ComfyBeats said:
Shenmue 3 to this day was likely a horrifying prospect for SEGA. Considering how expensive the first game was to make at the time, how the sequel I dont think did much better commercially, and its not hard to figure out why they were apprehensive about the idea of ever continuing the series. Shenmue Online and that supposed city building game were also weird attempts at gauging interest in the series which didn't blow up like they wanted either.
In the meantime they had Yakuza, which while the first game was expensive to produce, they could take advantage of the fact that they could reuse so much aspects from game to game and churn them out in such a short period of time, with actors and tons of in game advertisements to do much of the heavy lifting. They dont need that much in terms of environments or attention to detail compared to the Shenmue games, or even a multi-dub either. Yakuza aiming for a slightly more adult audience also likely did wonders compared to Shenmue.
Click to expand...


That reminds me of another thing:

Yakuza had/has a lot of real world product placement. I imagine this is for two things: real world simulation immersion and...money. After all, I don't think SEGA is paying these companies to put their products in their game. It should be the other way around (obviously) otherwise whats the point. This is why I never understood why Coke had the vending machines removed in the first Shenmue as opposed to the Japanese version. Isn't it the same company? Why would the Japanese division of Coke be okay with it but the U.S./International EU version of Coke be like 'nah get that outta there'? Were they too cheap? Weird because Coke is a obviously a multibillion dollar company; I dont think paying for product placement in a Sega Dreamcast game (or this one) would be that big a deal for them.
Then there's Timex. Originally, Ryo's watch. Now its a Ys Net watch. But I believe in the original games, it was kept to Timex when they got localized unlike the Coca Cola vending machines. So for Shenmue 3, we can either speculate that Ys Net was refused product placement by Timex, or they simply didn't bother to ask. But for either of those...why?
So wouldn't product placement help offset the costs for the game etc.
I mean, Yakuza titles have basically almost been a yearly thing since 2005 for SEGA, and I imagine besides reusing assets, the many product placement ads in it help offset budget costs to some degree.
 
Sput said:
With Sega or without Sega?
Click to expand...


At this point thats up in the air. We do know that this year alone, Sega has had their eye on the game, they've been present at several Shenmue 3 press tours this year, they previously finally released the HD version of the first two games, they've been trying to rebrand themselves PR wise by rereleasing other older titles and bringing back new versions of other older IPs, and Yu Suzuki a couple months ago in an interview acknowledged that he's still a consultant with SEGA. Plus, despite not working on this game at all or having any financial part in it, we see that this game has still has several SEGA easter egg nods to it which wouldn't happen if they were on bad terms with Ys Net.
 
Sput said:
But I mean, Sega is not the Sega of Sammy's time. And if Shenmue get some decents sell numbers, is there a chance that Sega says "dont worry dude, I got this" and help? I don't expect 70 million dollars like Shenmue 1 & 2, but the money enough to make what YS really wants.
Click to expand...


I was (might still) gonna make a topic about DLC regarding this.
The arcade machines in Niaowu have a "Coming Soon" paper stuck on their monitors, and nearby is a poster of Virtua Fighter.

That got me thinking: it could very well possibly be a SEGA endorsed DLC tie-in in the season pass or second season pass if there is one, that actually lets you download classic SEGA titles as a cooperative business deal, much like how SEGA's Virtua Fighter characters made it into Dead or Alive 5 first as DLC.
Maybe not but it certainly could be a possibility if they wanted it to be.
 
Budgiecat said:
Why would the Japanese division of Coke be okay with it but the U.S./International EU version of Coke be like 'nah get that outta there'?
Click to expand...
Maybe Coke U.S.A didn't like the offer of money with Sega ("give you money to put it in a weirdo game created by a japanese guy in a console that is dead? Wtf dude I know we are Coke and we have money but we are not making charity") and they just take it off the game.
 
Personally, I would feel a little peeved if Sega just waltzed back on board because Shenmue 3 was a success. They treated the franchise poorly after Shenmue 2 and to me, it felt like they allowed Yu-san to have the rights to make a new game because they did not expect it to succeed or perhaps even make it to market. Hell, they even took ages to release the HD versions of Shenmue 1&2 because they had so little faith in the franchise. Unless they actually showed some serious goodwill towards the series and the fans, it would feel like they were just sneaking back in the door because they think there's money to be had.
 
Niaxi said:
Personally, I would feel a little peeved if Sega just waltzed back on board because Shenmue 3 was a success. They treated the franchise poorly after Shenmue 2 and to me, it felt like they allowed Yu-san to have the rights to make a new game because they did not expect it to succeed or perhaps even make it to market. Hell, they even took ages to release the HD versions of Shenmue 1&2 because they had so little faith in the franchise. Unless they actually showed some serious goodwill towards the series and the fans, it would feel like they were just sneaking back in the door because they think there's money to be had.
Click to expand...


Remember though that Ryo was in Sonic All-Star Racing. Yu Suzuki mentioned that SEGA did ask him for permission to put Ryo in the game (and he said okay).
Which is odd to me: SEGA owned Shenmue 1&2 license so technically they didn't need to ask him.

In addition to that, in business, often leadership changes hands over time, and with that often comes shifts of business ideals and goals, and from what I gathered on this board is that someone took over leadership of SEGA in recent times (son of a former SEGA leader) and since he is younger, he doesn't share that same ill will old business man stubborness as the past ones. Might be for the reason of Shenmue 1&2 HD coming out finally in addition to all the other recent SEGA game releases of older titles (Valkyria Chronicles 4, PSO2, Streets of Rage 4, New Sakura Wars, A Certain Magical Virtual-On, Virtual-On collection, Panzer Dragoon 1&2 remakes, localizing Shining Resonance Refrain, localizing more Yakuza games consistently, localizing Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise and Judgement with English dubbing, and porting Resonance of Fate.

Kinda reminds me of that whole sins of the father quote:
“It is unfortunate that in most cases when the sins of the father fall on the son it is because unlike God, people refuse to forgive and forget and heap past wrongs upon innocent generations.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly,
 
Budgiecat said:
Kinda reminds me of that whole sins of the father quote:
“It is unfortunate that in most cases when the sins of the father fall on the son it is because unlike God, people refuse to forgive and forget and heap past wrongs upon innocent generations.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly,
Click to expand...

Hence why I suggested that they make some sort of goodwill gesture towards the fans. If they were to come out and say something like, 'we're going to back Shenmue 4, let Yu-san make the game he wants and not insist on things like microtransactions or that he release it on sedate without fail, ' then I would be more inclined to welcome their support. Or a commitment to back Shenmue 4&5 might do the trick.
 
A new Kickstarter would be a disaster. They'd be lucky to raise $1 million after the way the first Kickstarter was run. I'm also certain there'd be nowhere near as much hype or publicity surrounding the sequel to a game that just came out.
 
I would fund the game again on KS for sure but I think not many other People would do that besides the Hardcore fanbase. The KS for S4 would also lack the suprise Moment 3 had. I think there were man backers back then that just funded the game because of the hype. They even did not know what Shenmue was. But as everybody was talking about it they decided to give some Money.

This is not working again. I would not count on Sega as well though. Why should they be interested in the Franchise again all of a sudden? S3 is not going to be a fail I am quite sure about it, but it won't be a box office hit either. I think everything is up to Ys net again. I hope they can find a decent Investor.

Do not get m wrong guys, I would not be angry I am wrong and Sega would help. On the contrary but this possibility just does not make any sense. If they were into Shenmue they would have brought it back many years ago.

or they would have funded 3 already. But they left Yu San alone with it. Just allowed him to use the Franchise again, which is great too, but that is all they did..
 
If Shenmue sells 'enough,' then it's just a way to make some decent money without a lot of risk. I think Yakuza sells 'enough' and that's why they keep pumping them out. If Shenmue 3 moves decent numbers, it's probably safe to say Shenmue 4 will as well. At that point, we'll see if it's Sega or Deep Silver picking up the tab.
 
Budgiecat said:
At this point thats up in the air. We do know that this year alone, Sega has had their eye on the game, they've been present at several Shenmue 3 press tours this year, they previously finally released the HD version of the first two games, they've been trying to rebrand themselves PR wise by rereleasing other older titles and bringing back new versions of other older IPs, and Yu Suzuki a couple months ago in an interview acknowledged that he's still a consultant with SEGA. Plus, despite not working on this game at all or having any financial part in it, we see that this game has still has several SEGA easter egg nods to it which wouldn't happen if they were on bad terms with Ys Net.
Click to expand...
I hadn't thought about Sega being involved in IV until this discussion. Even if Sega isn't the beast it once was, I'd imagine their involvement would be a bit of a boon for a Shenmue IV.
 
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