Yu Suzuki

Shenmue 3 is the most funded video game in Kickstarter history with over $5.5 million pledged

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Despite many people considering the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter as being mishandled, it didn’t stop the game from reaching another legendary status milestone. It is now the most funded Kickstarter game of all time (at least until Hideo Kojima’s obvious turn to Kickstarter happens). The game has gathered over $5.5 million dollars in funding. At the moment of writing it has $5,733,751 pledged and over 63,477 backers.

That means that Shenmue 3 has beat the previous record held by Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night which got $5,545,991 in funding. As of this moment it is the third most-funded game on Kickstarter, being beaten by the top cat, Exploding Kittens card game that got $8,782,571 in funding. Sadly it doesn’t seem like Shenmue 3 will be getting anywhere near close to 8 million dollars since (as of writing) its still over 2 million shy of beating it with only 9 hours left.

So now the question is, do you thinking that whatever gets funded by the Kickstarter will be enough? While it gathered a bit more funding than Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, that game is a 2D Metroidvania style game, do you think that Shenmue 3 needed way more to complete its true vision? Let us know in the comment section.

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Shenmue 3 retail release not guaranteed, only backers guaranteed physical copy

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While we are approaching the final day of the Kickstarter for Shenmue 3, fans are asking if the game will have retail copies after its release and it seems that it might not be the case. According to a e-mail sent to Eurogamer from YS.NET:

“Whether Shenmue 3 will be available for retail or not is currently unconfirmed,”

The only way to secure a hard copy of Shenmue 3 when it comes out is backing the project on Kickstarter. If you don’t care about physical releases, you will always be able to purchase the game digitally.

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New Shenmue III trailer, less than 72 hours left in the campaign!

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Last night, presumably to feed off of the hype surrounding the end of Shenmue III‘s Kickstarter campaign, YS Net released a short clip of very early footage of a Shenmue III cutscene running on Unreal Engine 4.

Rather than new content, it seems Yu Suzuki was content with recreating another Shenmue II scene. The game does look quite brilliant in Unreal Engine 4, and can only get better as development continues! Check out the original Shenmue II scene here.

What do you think of the new clip, and how much will it push the Kickstarter in these final hours? Sound off in the comments below.

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Yu Suzuki’s Twitter Q&A Part 2: Shenmue 3 in-game footage won’t be shown until 2017

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Last time Yu Suzuki was answering fan questions on twitter, I searched his twitter to find all the questions and answers to give them to you. This time, someone on Shenmue Dojo beat me to it. So you can check out the answers questions here or hit the jump for the complete transcript.

Some of the interesting bits includes a sketch of Akira in  High School from the cancelled Virtua Fighter RPG, Saying that we won’t see in-game footage of Shenmue 3 until 2017, and even confirmed that the game will be based on reality, unlike what that Shenmue Online trailer lead us to believe.

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Yu Suzuki’s Twitter Q&A: Check out our complete transcript

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One of the issues with the Shenmue 3 KickStarter is that many people felt like there wasn’t enough details on the project. Unsurprisingly fans had a million questions for legendary game developer Yu Suzuki, thankfully Yu has tried to answer fan questions. First was in a form of a live Twitch chat, that didn’t go so smoothly (which he has apologized for).

Now he has taken to Twitter and allowed users to ask him any question, all you have to do is use the tag: #YouAskYu and the response was outstanding. But what did we learn from this? We gathered some of the best answers and posted them after the break!

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Shenmue 3 kickstarter adds physical PS4 copy

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Did you demand that Shenmue III get a Playstation 4 physical version? Guess what? Yu Suzuki has heard your cries and it was added earlier today. Pay $60 dollars and get yourself a physical copy of Shenmue 3 on Playstation 4 (or PC, since its the same price).

It doesn’t seem that they have added a tier to allow users to buy both physical copies of PC and PS4, so I don’t know which one I would want right now. I’m leaning towards PC for the modification aspect. What version are you guys picking up?

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Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Twitch Q&A: Looking into adding physical PS4 copies

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It seems that the world needs to know more and more about the Shenmue 3 KickStarter as each day passes, so Awesome Japan got Yu Suzuki to do a live Twitch stream answering fan questions regarding the KickStarter. While the stream had some issues starting up and the quality in the video being behind times it did answer quite a few important questions.

One of the biggest requests is for Shenmue 3 is a physical copy on the Playstation 4, so far they have only been offering up a digital copy for Sony’s newest machine; while the PC got both digital and physical. Yu Suzuki says he is looking into adding it as a tier.

Yu Suzuki also clarified how some of the mechanics work on some of their stretch goals, like the ‘character perspective system’ will let you play as Shenhua and Ren in Baisha. Another question he answered was about how much story would be cut from Shenmue 3 and according to Yu Suzuki he decided not to cut much of the story out; thus Shenmue 3 won’t not conclude the saga after all. 

He also announced via Twitch that he would be adding a few grab bags of old Shenmue merch as rewards, but those where gobbled up rather quickly.

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Yu Suzuki reveals more Shenmue 3 secrets and details in Reddit AMA

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Last night Yu Suzuki held a Reddit AMA, revealing even more Shenmue 3 details for fans. While the event itself was initially confusing, failing to mention if the event was 9:30 AM or PM, what time zone it was in, and where on Reddit it could be found, eventually everything was sorted and the AMA took place at /r/IAMA. Suzuki answered several questions pertaining to the length of the game, how many chapters the entire Shenmue saga would cover, potential gameplay elements, and more. Most interestingly, he laid out the exact numbers he hopes the Kickstarter will hit to make the game not only a reality, but as close to his vision as possible:

I will say this: if we reach the $5 mil mark, one of the things I really want to do with Shenmue 3 will become a reality. At $10 million, it will truly have the features of an open world.

After the break, check out a full breakdown of what Suzuki revealed about Shenmue 3!

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Swingin’ Report Show #79: Shenmue 3 E3 Reveal & Kickstarter

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We’re still pinching ourselves, because we can’t believe this is real life. Yu Suzuki is finally set to make Shenmue 3, having just announced the long awaited game at E3 and launching a Kickstarter to fund the project this week. On this episode of the Swingin’ Report Show, George and Barry discuss their reactions to the news, share opinions on the Kickstarter, and tackle the misconceptions of Sony’s involvement. We also speculate what Suzuki has planned for the third game based on past interviews and recently revealed details.

Check out Shenmue 3 on Kickstarter at kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3

[Download] [RSS] [iTunes] [Archive]

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Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida says Shenmue 3 IP deal was between SEGA and Yu Suzuki

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While Sony announced Shenmue 3 on stage and even admitted that they are involved with some funding for the project, fans are starting to wonder who owns the IP and what Sony had to do with getting the kickstarter going. If Sony’s involved why don’t they just fund the whole thing? According to Playstation President of Worldwide Studios’ Shuhei Yoshida, the deal for the Kickstarter was done by Yu Suzuki and SEGA.
During a interview with Engadget, they asked Yoshida-San the following: ” Why did Sony PlayStation decide to allow that crowdfunding announcement as opposed to funding it?”

“Ah, no, no, no. It’s a very exciting project and there are lots of PlayStation fans asking for it. But it’s a Sega IP and of course Suzuki Yu-san is the creator. So somehow Suzuki-san was able to work out with Sega to allow them to Kickstart the project. And because we liked the project, our third-party relations team struck a deal to help Kickstart the campaign at the E3 conference. That’s great PR.”

Sony has stated that they are willing to help promote the game and have shown that by allowing the Kickstarter to be announced on their stage at E3 in front of millions. Fans have been a bit angry with Sony’s involvement, in my opinion in the end of the day all the money funded by fans and Sony will go into Shenmue 3 to make it a better game, so in the end the consumer wins. No one is forcing anyone to donate to the Kickstarter, you can always wait for the released product. What are your thoughts?

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