Yu Suzuki just broke Kickstarter

[Jerome]

So Yu Suzuki is officially looking to fund Shenmue III, via Kickstarter, and the moment it was announced the site went down At some point it should be back up, so here's the url: Click here

[speKtor]

Originally Posted by Jerome

So Yu Suzuki is officially looking to fund Shenmue III, via Kickstarter, and the moment it was announced the site went down At some point it should be back up, so here's the url: Click here

He is going to be able to fund Shenmue's III thru VII by the time its over. SEGA fanboys will come out of the wood work lol.


EDIT: its gone up like $100,000 since I made this post. haha.

[Jerome]

It's now over $1 million. If it keeps up they'll reach their goal before I go to bed.

I'm curious if Sony is funding a big chunk of this project. A) it was announced during Sony's E3 press conference. B) Although it's not a PS4 exclusive, its only coming to the Playstation and PC, so did Sony give money to ensure it's not on the Xbox One? C) They're only asking for 2 million dollars, and considering the first game had a budget of nearly 50 million, they have to be getting additional funding from somewhere else. Unless the game is significantly stripped down (compared to the first two games), 2 million just doesn't seem like much. Either way, I'm a fan of the first two, so yes, I'm excited for this!

[AnimeJoe]

I think part of Shemue's original high cost was due to the creation of reusable assets to be used on the entire Shenmue franchise in order to lessen the development costs of each new release. So, the original 50 million or so dollars was an investment in the entire series/franchise and not just for the first game. At least that's how I vaguely. remember things. I imagine that the investment was made with plans to continue the series on the Dreamcast, but I have no idea what happened to that investment after the plug was pulled on the Dreamcast. Who knows, maybe they'll reuse those assets and we'll get a Dreamcast-looking PS4 game.

I'm more than likely in the minority in this thinking but I always thought Yu Suzuki should've returned to the original intent of having Shenmue be an episodic series and made Shenmue 3 into an episodic release (3 or 4 parts). At least each episode would've helped fund the next one and maybe we would've gotten more Shenmue games A LOT sooner. A good starting place would've probably be in converting the cancelled Shenmue Online into an offline/single-player episode since that game was already under development at the time.

[speKtor]

Took less than 9 hours to reach its $2 million goal.


Side note: Sonys presentation was pretty awesome.

[-Tetsuo-]

I will never understand why people liked this game. Terrible story, terrible mechanics, terrible voice acting. There are literally no redeeming qualities.

[Viper]

Originally Posted by -Tetsuo-

I will never understand why people liked this game. Terrible story, terrible mechanics, terrible voice acting. There are literally no redeeming qualities.

Hear hear!

[AnimeJoe]

I was a little hard on the original Shenmue for being a little underwhelming. I thought the controls were kind of stiff, and the fighting engine was a little lacking. Code Veronica had been released around that time and I initially liked it better than Shenmue and that was my Resident Evil game. But I thought Shenmue 2 was pretty good.

[Aeon Storm]

I still have yet to play more than minutes of Shenmue.

[Pahn]

I owned Shenmue for several years and never even booted it.

[Syndicate]

...I thoroughly enjoyed the first Shenmue, the story, music, and fighting engine were all a lot of fun imo. I own the second game, but like a lot of other games I own it's still shrink wrapped. A third game in the series sounds like a win to me and was very surprised when Yu Suzuki showed up during the Sony event.

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by Syndicate

...I thoroughly enjoyed the first Shenmue, the story, music, and fighting engine were all a lot of fun imo. I own the second game, but like a lot of other games I own it's still shrink wrapped.

I have the first game on the Dreamcast, and bought the sequel on the Xbox. I'm not sure which one I like better, but I enjoyed both. I'll have to play through both again, before the third comes out... but I think I have at least a couple years before I have to worry about that.

[Shaolin]

Originally Posted by -Tetsuo-

I will never understand why people liked this game. Terrible story, terrible mechanics, terrible voice acting. There are literally no redeeming qualities.

Well, it did wonders for my insomnia....

[Jerome]

Just over 2 days to go and they have:

55,885 backers
$4,977,922 pledged of $2,000,000 goal

Not bad that it more than doubled it's original goal.

[AnimeJoe]

Originally Posted by Jerome

Just over 2 days to go and they have:

55,885 backers
$4,977,922 pledged of $2,000,000 goal

Not bad that it more than doubled it's original goal.

Now it's up to $5,024,446.

I'll be backing it this Friday.

[speKtor]

Originally Posted by Jerome

Just over 2 days to go and they have:

55,885 backers
$4,977,922 pledged of $2,000,000 goal

Not bad that it more than doubled it's original goal.

And probably about 95 million short of what it will actually cost to make the game

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by speKtor

And probably about 95 million short of what it will actually cost to make the game

Hahaha, at this point I wouldn't be surprised... but hey, Sony is supposedly footing a big chunk of the bill, so...

Anyway, less than 4 hours to go and they're at 65,953 backers, with $5,980,534 in funding. I'm trying to decide what backer level to do.

[AnimeJoe]

I pledged $100. Had to get both the trial version and physical copy.

[bigloser]

I really want Shenmue 3 to be good... but with that small of a budget, I can't help but feel it's going to just be a visual novel.

[AnimeJoe]

Yu Suzuki did confirm an upcoming PayPal option, so the Shenmue 3 budget isn't set in stone yet.

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by AnimeJoe

I pledged $100. Had to get both the trial version and physical copy.

I ended up doing the $175 one, to get the toy capsule, t-shirt, mp3 soundtrack, and the printed art-book.

Originally Posted by bigloser

I really want Shenmue 3 to be good... but with that small of a budget, I can't help but feel it's going to just be a visual novel.

Nobody knows what the budget is, and it sounds like Sony and Shibuya Productions are putting up some additional money. From the Kickstarter FAQ:

Q: How are Sony and Shibuya Productions involved?

A: Sony and Shibuya Productions have been wonderful partners because they believe in Shenmue and want to see the best for the fans and the game. Their investment in (and support of) Shenmue have helped to realize a sequel that will stand proud with its predecessors. While it is not business practice to discuss the specific details of such arrangements, their assistance on the production and marketing end, and in Sony’s case with some publishing support, Ys Net is able to use more of the money collected through Kickstarter purely for Shenmue 3’s development. It is also important to note that your funds are going strictly to Ys Net for development of Shenmue 3 – Sony and Shibuya Productions are not seeing a cent of your Kickstarter dollars.

[Vid Gamer]

Daily reminder Shenmue 1's budget on the Dreamcast was $70 million.

[bigloser]

yeah, I know Sony is suppose to throw some money in there. But I don't think it'll be very much, and certainly not enough to make Shenmue 3 reach near the scale of 1 or 2.

And to be honest I don't really trust Yu Suzuki. He was out of game development for a while, and before that it seemed like almost everything he worked on ended up not seeing the light of day. Guy has a really bad track record this century. And this is coming from a guy who use to rank him up there with Miyamoto as one of the greatest video game creators in the industry.

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by bigloser

yeah, I know Sony is suppose to throw some money in there. But I don't think it'll be very much, and certainly not enough to make Shenmue 3 reach near the scale of 1 or 2.

Yeah, I'm not going to be surprised if the game is not nearly as big as the previous two, but really I'd just like to see the story come to a conclusion.

Originally Posted by bigloser

And to be honest I don't really trust Yu Suzuki. He was out of game development for a while, and before that it seemed like almost everything he worked on ended up not seeing the light of day. Guy has a really bad track record this century. And this is coming from a guy who use to rank him up there with Miyamoto as one of the greatest video game creators in the industry.

I'm not familiar with what he was working on, after the fall of the Dreamcast, that ended up never being released, but that definitely sucks. Still, I'm hopeful he can make this game happen. You can call it wishful thinking, but being a fan of the first two, I definitely want to see the story continue.

He did provide a new update to Kickstarter, back on August 30th, and said that up to that point they've completed the composition, story, planning and the game flow, which according to him means "placing various cut scenes, events, battles, and quests in order."

[Jerome]

I just read the latest Kickstarter update, and Yu Suzuki and company have setup a "Slacker Backer" site, where you can help support the project, via PayPal (click here). However, I'm guessing there's nobody left here, who is interested in backing the game, who hasn't already done so.

Either way, they're now $53,574 away from their next stretch goal.