Shenmue World is now dead [edit]


Even though we all wanted to play Shenmue City or Shenmue World (whatever you want to call it), it seems we won’t get the chance. According to Ysnet, the official developer for Shenmue Gai (the Japanese name of the game) has said that the game will cease to exist. No more updates, no more support. The site has a thank you message to all the users that played it.

This is pretty bad news for the Shenmue franchise and for hopefuls that this would lead to Shenmue III.

[Edit] It seems that this was already discussed by Yu Suzuki in an interview. Basically they are closing the mobile version of the game, but they are going to launch a ‘smart phone’ version for devices like Android and iOS.[/Edit]

Forum member gets hands on with Shenmue City

Our forum upsidedown fuji has been playing Shenmue City since it launched yesterday. Yes, the lucky, sexy bastard lives in Japan and can take advantage of Japan virtues like living in the same island as Yu Suzuki and playing his games. While the rest of us hit F5 on the YS NET website waiting for Western announcements.

Enough of my bitter attitude, if you want to read his thoughts on the social game, click here.  Don’t be scared of signing up for an account, we don’t bite. Who knows, could save your life.

Shenmue City Western Release Planned – Suzuki

While speaking to games™, Yu Suzuki revealed that he is currently planning to release the Shenmue social networking/mobile game ‘Shenmue City’ aka ‘Shenmue Gai’ in English.

When asked if Shenmue City might be converted to more commonly used western platforms such as iPhone or Facebook he replies,
“There are plans but I cannot discuss them now.”

When explaining the premise of Shenmue City, Yu Suzuki said,
“We’re building Shenmue City as a social game, and each individual player is the main character. The story progresses as each player take on the role of a student who works with Ryo at his dojo, called the Hazuki Bukan.”

When talking about the future of Shenmue City, Yu Suzuki said,
“Two more stories will follow in the future’, he adds, “and if management likes our performance, more stories will be a possibility.”

Shenmue City is due to be released on Yahoo Japan’s Mobagetown service this winter and will presumably come to the west in 2011. For the full interview with Yu Suzuki, see games™ issue 104, on sale 23 December.

I’ll be playing Shenmue City no matter what… If only just to show there is support for the Shenmue series in the west. Hell if it comes to Facebook I’ll just have it running in the background as I do my daily rounds looking at photos of people I went to school with and seeing which ones are now fat, ugly, balding or pregnant.

For impressions/questions on the Cell Phone/Mobile Phone version of the game I suggest going to THIS THREAD on our forums.

Shenmue City goes live today

That is right, Shenmue City is now up to play. The only issue is that the mobile version is the only one available. Meaning if you (like myself) are waiting for the PC version, you will have to wait. That version is still in development, no release date given.

But all is not lost, you can download wallpapers (like the one above) to celebrate the launch. Sure, not as cool as getting Shenmue 3. But bear with us! I hope this means we will get some gameplay footage online.

[Via: AndriaSang]