Shenmue

Rumor: SEGA renews the Shenmue trademark – could Shenmue HD be back on track?

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Via NeoGAF and hokanko-alt.com comes news that SEGA has renewed the trademark for Shenmue. Fans will probably remember that back in February we reported that SEGA had lost the trademark for Shenmue – specifically in reference to “computer game programs and prerecorded discs and ROMs for computer game programs” and “entertainment services, namely, providing an online computer game”. We speculated that these trademarks refer to the original Dreamcast releases and the cancelled Shenmue Online. While we don’t have the specifics on this new trademark filing, such as country of origin or the specific uses, it is possible that SEGA has gotten back on track with releasing the rumored Shenmue 1&2 HD rerelease. Both games have been rumored to be complete and ready for release for quite some time, and back in 2012 when asked what the next SEGA Heritage releases would be, SEGA responded with “it’s gonna be Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia as well”.

Of course, this is speculation on our part, but if SEGA truly has renewed the Shenmue trademark then they must be making some sort of use out of it. As soon as we learn more, we’ll be sure to share it! For now, we’re filing this as a rumor, even if the trademark renewal is legitimate.

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Insert Coin’s SEGA catalog to be updated with new items

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Insert Coin is a United Kingdom-based clothing company with apparel and accessories featuring various video game franchises. As it is, their catalog of Sega items is fairly expansive and covers a few SEGA franchises including Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Space Channel 5, and of course Sonic the Hedgehog. SEGAbits has covered some of their offerings previously, including one news post that features a Beat-inspired shirt and a Knuckles-inspired hoodie, and another news post that shows off Dreamcast and Mega Drive-inspired bags.

The company recently updated their blog to show off a new line of SEGA-themed items for this year. These include the above-pictured “Running Club” T-shirt which pays homage to the central title screen icon and release year of the first game. There’s also a “Science Club” T-shirt for future evil geniuses creative and inventive thinkers, and a dress with Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s Casino Night itself as the dress. Rounding out the collection is a Shenmue-inspired Hazuki jacket.

The company hopes to release these new products in Q3 of this year, and plans to release more details and images of the products in the near future.

What sort of SEGA-themed clothing or accessories would you be interested in?

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New Head of Xbox Phil Spencer says gamers want Microsoft to bring back Shenmue

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Following his recent appointment as Head of Xbox at Microsoft, Phil Spencer spoke with Polygon about his ideas for the future of the brand. Regarding his leadership, Spencer promised that “with me you’re going to get a focus on gaming first and a best platform to play games on.” When asked about what games he receives requests for, Spencer named the Shenmue franchise as the biggest request Xbox owners ask Microsoft for. Spencer jokingly referred to it as “the big Shenmue contingency.”

A new Shenmue isn’t on the horizon just yet, but it is good to know that people like Phil Spencer have the franchise on their minds thanks to the efforts of fan campaigns. Help out the #SaveShenmue campaign yourself by heading over to their site and spreading the word.

 

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Reminder: Shenmue Postmortem Panel on 3/19 at 2014 GDC

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The annual Game Developers Conference will be taking place in California throughout next week. There are various panels available on topics related to the gaming industry to listen in on for attendees. However, of particular note is the Shenmue Postmortem featuring then-series director Yu Suzuki and PS4 architect Mark Cerny as Suzuki’s translator. It will be taking place on March 19, 2014 at 2:00 PM US Pacific Time and will close at 3:00 PM.

Per the GDC website’s description of the panel, Yu Suzuki will be discussing the origins and development history of the first title starting as a Virtua Fighter RPG for the SEGA Saturn and its eventual release as the Dreamcast cult classic.

The GDC panels are not typically streamed or otherwise made available to non-attendees; however, Gamespot plans to stream this particular panel. With the panel fast approaching, you may want to make time to watch it if you will be available!

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Has SEGA lost the trademark for Shenmue? [Updated]

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Weird the way things happen? In one month from today, March 19th, Yu Suzuki will take the stage at GDC to talk about Shenmue, Ryo Hazuki has made his return to SEGA’s All-Stars Racing games and now SEGA loses the trademark for the franchise in the USA? Seems like a step back for fans and it seems to be true.

According to the trademark page, the reason they dropped the trademark was “because registrant did not file an acceptable declaration under Section 8.” So what is Section 8? You can read it all here, but the whole thing revolves around SEGA not coming with a ‘declaration’ on why they should keep it and why they haven’t been making commercial uses of it. Though, I think this is a mistake since SEGA technically is making ‘use’ of the franchise with his appearances in recent games and even merchandise. I have a feeling this trademark issue is something SEGA is already working on fixing.

Update: It should be noted that the database shows two dead trademarks for Shenmue. One, filed on February 18, 1999 and cancelled on January 17, 2009, pertains to “computer game programs and prerecorded discs and ROMs for computer game programs”. This is likely referring to the original Shenmue for the SEGA Dreamcast.

The one that was cancelled on Valentine’s Day pertains to “entertainment services, namely, providing an online computer game”. This one was filed on August 25, 2003. The now cancelled Shenmue Online was officially announced in 2004, meaning this recent dead trademark is likely for that game and the potential for games like it.

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UPDATE: Shenmue’s Ryo Hazuki now available as DLC in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed for PC

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Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed‘s Steam store page has updated with the addition of Ryo Hazuki DLC! Unlike past additions to the PC version of the game, Ryo does not appear as a free update, but rather has to be purchased for $1.59. Riding in a trio of classic SEGA arcade machines (Hang-On, Space Harrier, and OutRun), Ryo just about beats Ages in terms of fan-service. But the real question is, who would win in a race? Daytona USA’s Hornet, or Ryo in an OutRun cabinet? Only one way to find out…

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Yogscast May Have Slipped About Ryo Hazuki in Sonic Transformed

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Shenmue 3 still isn’t a thing, but the Yogscast may have revealed S0L’s surprise a little early. During their recent stream around 40 minutes in they had a character select screen that looked larger than normal, and of all the faces to be on there besides Simon was none other than Ryo Hazuki as seen here, and went so far as to have him in a race.

He isn’t steering a forklift but he’s riding an arcade cabinet playing OutRun instead. I assume it’ll transform into a WaveRunner cabinet on water and an After Burner II cabinet in the air.  No dates have been revealed or any other details, but Sega fans can rest assured that their demands for more Ryo and more SEGA stars are indeed being met.

UPDATE: Or maybe the hovercraft mode is Ryo riding a Hang On cabinet to keep in theme with the works of Yu Suzuki.

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The SEGA Five: Shenmue’s craziest moments

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It was a day of deathly quiet as Ryo hurried up the path to the Hazuki dojo, well aware that something was amiss. Minutes later, he would witness the murder of his father at the hands of Lan Di, an event that would forever alter the course of his existence.

Shenmue was a series that began dramatically, but quietly. Iwao’s death was one showcased with a degree of style, but the next few hours of the game saw the Hazuki dojo grieving, with Ryo searching through town for the most mundane of clues. It was a deliberately-paced start that may have mislead some into believing that they’d began a subtle and realistic experience; and to an extent, they wouldn’t be wrong. But Shenmue is, at heart, a Kung Fu epic.  And like in almost any of those, it doesn’t take long at all for the adventure to fly off the rails. In a good way.

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SEGA trademarks Shenmue III UPDATE: HOAX

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segabits shenmue

UPDATE: It has been brought to our attention that this copyright is almost certainly fake. Apparently, the dead giveaway is the lack of an application reference number. We’ve contacted the company listed on the trademark to confirm this, but in the mean time we’d advice you now take this news with a moon sized grain of salt. It should be noted that a fake copyright for Fallout 4 was registered with this same organization on November 14th. The registration has since been removed. We’ll be keeping an eye on this registration and we’ll bring you updates when we can, but now this trademark should be considered a hoax. To check out the original story, go below the fold. To get an overview of the rash of trademark hoaxes and how they’ve been happening, check out this CVG article.

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Yu Suzuki to deliver a postmortem for Shenmue at GDC

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[SEGAbits at the GDC 14 event]

SEGA legendary developer Yu Suzuki is set to deliver a postmortem on Shenmue at this upcoming year’s GDC. GDC says that the creator will be talking about the classic game for the first times, starting from its origins as a Virtua Fighter based RPG for the SEGA Saturn all the way till its release in 1999. But that isn’t all, Playstation 4 lead system architect and game designer Mark Cerny will be translating the presentation! I guess that was what talked about last year?

Sadly for people like us that aren’t invited or can’t make it to the the event, good old GameSpot will be live streaming the event, so we don’t miss on any ‘surprise announcements’. So, who’s excited?

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Sony’s Third Production Team receiving many requests for Yakuza, Shenmue

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A few months ago, Sony announced the formation of the Third Party Productions team, a new group within Sony’s third party relations meant to facilitate the localization or porting of content between regions or consoles. The first project announced by this team was the Vita port of Borderlands 2, which is a pretty major feat to accomplish in and of itself.

The team has since asked fans to send in requests for the kinds of games they’d like to see on their Playstation console of choice, and according to Sony’s Adam Boyes their top two choices were none other then SEGA’s Yakuza and Shenmue franchises. For what this means, please check out the full quote below the fold. For the full interview, please visit Kotaku.

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SEGA Cinema: Shenmue the Movie

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Hello and welcome to our new feature called ‘SEGA Cinema‘ where we provide commentary tracks for SEGA related films. For our first film we’re checking out Shenmue The Movie, which was released in Japanese cinema’s back in 2001. Go grab some popcorn and join George, Barry the Nomad and Bartman while we watch some of the best acting that early 2000’s gaming had to offer.

[MP3]

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