Shenmue 3 Kickstarter Ends At $6,333,295, 69,320 Backers

shenmue 3

The Shenmue 3 Kickstarter campaign has officially ended, earning a total amount of $6,333,295 with 69,320 backers.

Fourteen years after Shenmue II was released, and following two failed attempts at reviving the franchise (Shenmue Online and Shenmue Gai), Yu Suzuki was welcomed to Sony’s E3 2015 stage to officially announce the beginning of the Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue 3. Breaking the Guinness World Record for the fastest video game to reach $1 million through crowdfunding in one hour and 42 minutes (as well as initially crashing Kickstarter’s site), Shenmue 3 continued to break records by being the second fastest Kickstarter campaign in all categories to raise over $1 million. Less than nine hours later, Shenmue 3 continued to drop jaws around the world when it reached $2 million, its 100% funding goal. Since the announcement, the money has continued to flow in, raising almost $1 million more on its last campaign day.

The game has also become the most funded video game in Kickstarter History, a record previously held by Bloodstained, the third most funded Kickstarter campaign in the “Games” category, and, most impressively, the sixth most funded Kickstarter project of all time.

The Kickstarter campaign should be considered a massive success, and now we can all rest (if only for a little bit), and await a steady flow of Shenmue 3 news until December of 2017!

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

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.

BlitWorks tells fans to continue asking SEGA for Shenmue and Jet Set Radio Future HD ports

ShenmueHD
Spanish video game website GameSpek recently interviewed the Barcelona, Spain based company responsible for many ports, including SEGA fan favorite Jet Set Radio.

As we all know, before the Shenmue III E3 2015 announcement, the on again/off again Shenmue franchise was constantly surrounded in a wide array of rumors, some concerning ports or high definition remakes of the first two games having been started on, or even fully completed. These rumors never came to fruition, but now we have some official insight into the status of these Shenmue ports. Says BlitWorks:

“Then we thought it would be a good idea to showcase Sonic CD, Jet Set Radio and Shenmue working on the emulators to Sega, with the prospect of a commercial release for the consoles of that time. They showed interest in Sonic CD and Jet Set Radio“.

When asked if they had anything else to say to fans, BlitWorks said:

Thanks to you! We would like to tell SEGA games fans that they don’t cease to ask for ports of great games like Shenmue or Jet Set Radio Future, we are the first ones that would like to port these games. In change.org or similar webs there are several requests about that.

They also discuss Jet Set Radio‘s removal from iOS, and more. Check out the full interview here.

Sonic & SEGA All – Stars Racing shipped for US arcades

Sonic & SEGA All – Stars Racing has officially shipped for American arcades. It took them quite some time, didn’t it? I remember hearing about the arcade announcement a few months back, and it’s just now being released.

The game will feature all of the original content from the console versions, and will be equipped with a subwoofer seat, widescreen video, multicolor cabinet illumination, and a special steering wheel with its own weapon launch buttons. It will also feature a ticket dispenser which, during a “winner takes all” mode, will award a preset number of tickets multiplied by the number of drivers to the first place racer.

The cabinets were shipped early this month, according to the article, so look for it now in your closest arcade.

[Source:Vending Times]

Kingdon Conquest surpasses a million App Store downloads

SEGA’s free to play (with paid updates) iOS title has officially surpassed a million downloads on Apple’s App Store. An impressive feat indeed. Here’s the press release:

SAN FRANCISCO – May 17, 2011

SEGA® of America today announced that Kingdom Conquest™, its first free-to-play MMORPG for iPhone® and iPod touch®, has surpassed 1 million downloads worldwide. After launching in North America and Europe last fall, Kingdom Conquest quickly took the #1 spot in the Free RPG category on the App Store across eight different countries. The game also held the top spot in Free RPG App Store Sales ranking for 93 consecutive days after launching in Japan this past January.

Along with reaching this milestone, Kingdom Conquest also received the 2010 “Innovation Award” during the Global Mobile Game Award at the Global Mobile Internet Conference last month in Beijing. The game is currently available in 20 countries, and SEGA plans to expand the game to an even wider audience in the coming months.

Kingdom Conquest offers players a unique blend of competitive, massively multiplayer strategic gameplay with 3D, monster-slaying action. Players must delve the many dungeons and ruins that litter Magna, the Land of Monsters, defeating and capturing the creatures within to build out their army and grow their kingdom. Shrewd players can also acquire Charge Points via in-app purchase that help boost their progress in focused ways, from increased treasury capacity to speedier resource gathering.

To download Kingdom Conquest for free and join the global battle for Magna, the Land of Monsters, visit the app store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kingdomconquest/id384877854?mt=8


[Source: Gamasutra]

Football Manager Live closing, FML11 now on iPad

Football Manager Live, SEGA’s other MMO, will be unplayable online starting June 1st. New subscriptions are not being accepted, but if you are a player, you are still allowed to play until May 31st. I can’t seem to find an announcement, but the FM Live website is giving me that message. Check it out at the source below.

In other Football Manager news, Football Manager Handheld 2011 is now available for your iPad. Check it out here.

[Source: FootballManagerLive.com]
[Source: FootballManager.com]

Rumor: Saint Seiya MMO incoming?

Wasn’t this a rumor a few years ago?

Anyways, MMOSite.com is reporting that Perfect World Beijing
has acquired the license to make toys and merch for Saint Seiya. Nothing big, right?

Well, an anonymous source is saying that SEGA has the license to create video games for Saint Seiya, and that an MMO is in the works right now. I guess we’ll see, shall we? What do you think?

[Source: MMOSite]

SEGA Sales: 50% off select XBLA titles (UPDATED)

CVG has just reported that from April 19th through April 25th, Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode I, Crazy Taxi, and OutRun Online Arcade will have their prices slashed by 50%. OutRun will run you 400 points, Sonic 4 will cost 600, and Crazy Taxi will set you back another 400 points. No better time to pick these titles up than now.

SEGA Europe has posted a blog about this same sale that includes ALL of their XBLA titles included in this sale. Pick these titles up NOW. Below is a of the titles on sale.

[Source: CVG]
[Source: SEGA]

Want to donate to Japan relief and get some cool SEGA swag?

Well, you still can. It looks like SEGA Of America is about done auctioning off their items, having raised thousands of dollars by selling rare merchandise on eBay the past couple of weeks.

Well, they still have a few items up. If you’re into cosplay, two Valkyria Chronicles uniforms are up for grabs, as well as some Aliens Vs. Predator games, a rare Sonic & Tails 1992 SEGA watch, and more.

Get them while you still can, and help out a truly noble cause.

[Source: SEGA]

Thor: God Of Thunder only shares some story elements with movie

Unlike the good looking Cap’n America game that SEGA is putting out, Thor has been in development for two years according to PlayStation Universe, and still looks like crap. I suggest overlooking this one. Maybe if you’re bored and up for a good laugh, check it out a few years from now when it’s cheaper than those Burger King 360 games that are everywhere at used game shops.

Anyway, I guess the story is good and somewhat original, and it has a score set by Inon Zur, who composed music for Dragon Age II. Looks like that’s it.

[Source: PlayStation Universe]

Captain America: Super Soldier has been in development since 2008

As if we needed another reason to compliment this game. It already looks miles better than the best parts of Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor: God Of Thunder. The combat and gameplay looks smooth and pretty polished. The story even looks pretty good.

And now, we find out that this title has been given a three year development cycle. Going off of SEGA’s track record with movie games, this is very rare.

Also of note is that the development company, Next Level Games (Super Mario Strikers, Transformers: Cybertron, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon), convinced SEGA and Marvel to let them write their own original story for the game. They even brought in Christos Gage, a Marvel writer, to craft it.

Captain America is coming to the 360, Wii, 3DS, DS, PS3, and PSP on July 19th in North America, and July 15th in Europe.

[Source: PlayStation Universe]

Mie Kumagai discusses VT4

Australian Gamer recently sat down with famed SEGA developer Mie Kumagai, the first ever female president of an internal development team (Hitmaker). She has worked on titles in the Virtua Tennis and Virtual On franchises.

In a surprisingly short interview, she discusses a bit about Virtua Tennis 4, and tells us that SEGA is looking to continue Virtual On. Hmm….

Check out the rest below.

[Source: Australian Gamer]

SEGA using open source 3D for VT4

Apparently SEGA is using a free to download 3D program to aid in the development of Virtua Tennis 4 in Japan. SEGA Of Japan technical artist Katsuhiko Omori said this in an email to the creators of Blender:

Hello

My name is Katsuhiko Omori and I work as technical artist at SEGA Japan.
One of my main responsibilities is to research new technology and evaluating them for a possible application for SEGA’s game titles.

In 2010, I designed a shader rendering pipeline for Virtua Tennis 4 (SEGA) with the help of Blender 2.4. I utilized the material node-editor to generate and compose different surface materials and fine tune the finale results. In this aspect, the node-system was an extremely helpful tool in exploring the possibilities of this artist oriented experiment.

VT4 adopted the ueber shader and thus was it possible to re-implement my designed materials and user parameters on the game console. The attached image illustrates the face-skin material – the most complicated shader. As you can see it is a rather complex combination.

It’s all Greek to me, but maybe some of our more computer inclined readers can make sense of it.

In other news, the World Tour Virtua Tennis 4 demo is now live on PSN. Go check it out now if you are a PSN+ member. If you aren’t you can check it out this time next week.

[Source: Videogamewriters.com]
[Source: SEGA]

Streets Of Rage 2 out now on iOS

From out of seemingly nowhere, Streets Of Rage 2 appears for download on the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone. The game will cost you $2.99/€2.39/£1.79/AU$ 3.99 and includes Bluetooth multiplayer, and the Japanese version, Bare Knuckle 2.

The article also mentions that Golden Axe 2, Golden Axe 3, and Streets Of Rage 3 will be available this spring. Cool beans.

[Source: SEGA]