Shenmue City/Ys Net Topic!

[Mengels7]

^ ROJM said that, not me.  The quote's off.

I mean yeah obviously the game isn't ready to simply be ported to a system, and I'm sure a ton of work is still required, but I do believe that there's a decent amount of work already completed.

[Orta]

You spend 70 million on 7 discs worth of game play and the millions required to develop them from 1994 to 2001. Nothing of Shenmue III was finished at all, bar the basic script.
Modelling the new Characters the New World just haven't been finished and what little was done is years out of date of an old Dreamcast engine that was out of date on the X-Box, never mind now.

And now for proper evidence of this fact.

[Mengels7]

You spend 70 million on 7 discs worth of game play and the millions required to develop them from 1994 to 2001. Nothing of Shenmue III was finished at all, bar the basic script.
Modelling the new Characters the New World just haven't been finished and what little was done is years out of date of an old Dreamcast engine that was out of date on the X-Box, never mind now.

And now for proper evidence of this fact.

Oooh...yeah he got you on that one.

[Team Andromeda]

And now for proper evidence of this fact.

I could say fairy stories From the inside, or more to the point
Just that very little has ever been shown off of Shenmue III ?
 That the $70 million Budget was all spent back in 2000

Some of the very 1st real-time shots of Shenmue on the DC showed what would become Shenmue II and a lot of it. Nothing bar 1 or 2 shots have been shown of what would be Shemmue III in 9 odd years, hardly anything .  

I would imagine all the High Polygonal Modelling and scanning into the computer of the characters was done , most of the basic research in terms of pictures and videos of Kowloon all done , same for all the rooms
Actual full scale production of turning all that into a game, fit for a X-Box game (never mind 360, where everything would have to be remodelled again ) with full gameplay and AI  however I doubt, after the flop that was Shenmue II

Shenmue III needs millions from the likes of SONY or Microsoft and they have little interest in the series, its proven to be not a console seller at all.

[Orta]

That doesn't answer my doubt.

[Sharky]

TA is trust worthy, I can vouch for him. Having known him for years I can say he has gotten plenty of things right.

Then again so is Joe.

[Nathan]

Has anyone here seen the Shenmue Premiere video? There is footage of Niao Sun and Lan Di that has not been seen yet, and SEGA has said that Niao Sun is a character from the third game onwards. A cell phone wallpaper was given away at one point at Shenmue.com, there is video and pictures of her, and her model was in What's Shenmue?, so I think that's pretty good evidence that some work has been done on III.

Also, the Saturn video on Shenmue II...the very end shows clips of Ryo and Shenhua in Guilin. That means Shenmue II was pretty much done on the Saturn...they had to have done something on Shenmue III.

[crackdude]

Fuck Sony and MS. Why not release it on the Wii? At least they'd have an excuse for barely upgrading the visuals and get away with it.

[Team Andromeda]

That doesn't answer my doubt.

Here's some scans from  Magazines in early 1999 , after the whole Shenmue 20th December reveal show.

Most of the shots show a lot of what was in Shenmue II, never mind Shenmue I.

Total Control Feb 1999



Total Control April 1999




Edge Feb 1999





Edge Aug 1999

[Team Andromeda]

EDGE March 1999








Getting shots of anything that even resembles Shenmue III playable code is far harder, even when Shenmue II was in development. Can not see how or why SEGA would want to keep such a Huge Project like Shenmue III under raps for 9 years  and hurting its own fans.

Never mind how it really could,  in the days of widespread internet; Facebook and twitter and with a team of 200 staff . If it was getting towards  finished and ready to go on the 360 , it would have leaked out by now

[Orta]

I can't see why they would want to show what the game would become. All the screenshots show cityscapes and we all know the end of Shenmue II isn't exactly set in a city. Oh, speculation. Isn't it a favourite around these parts?

[Orta]

TA is trust worthy, I can vouch for him. Having known him for years I can say he has gotten plenty of things right.

Then again so is Joe.

I find walls of text to be quite entertaining, if only most of them consisted of actual facts instead of opinions disguised as facts...

[Team Andromeda]

I can't see why they would want to show what the game would become. All the screenshots show cityscapes and we all know the end of Shenmue II isn't exactly set in a city. Oh, speculation. Isn't it a favourite around these parts?

The shots show the very last bit of Shenmue II on Disc 4 and that's from a Mag scan back in Feb 1999 (and it takes 4 weeks to put a Mag together), never mind most of the stuff that happened in disc III in Shenmue II .  All some 10 months before the 1st game shipped, never mind that Shenmue II didn't ship till Winter 2001 (even with a lot of work already done as the screen shots show)

Getting hold of any Shenmue III shots though is much more difficult, even when SEGA were showing off Shenmue and Shenmue II.
Kind of says to me that little of that game was even put in to real production.

And why would SEGA keep it under wraps for 9 years, only adding more and more hurt to its own fans. It really doesn't add up, if the game was getting ready to ship back in 2005, never mind in 2010.

[Orta]

If so much was done ahead of release there is also reason to believe there could exist a lot of work done regarding Shenmue III. Why was it canned? I cannot tell you that... The general financial failure the game was could be a hint. Also, completed games are cancelled all the time and the Dreamcast sure has a fair amount of them.

[Team Andromeda]

I find walls of text to be quite entertaining, if only most of them consisted of actual facts instead of opinions disguised as facts...

FACTS are near impossible to prove, unless you're wiling to lose your Job (say if you wrk for SEGA, or get a mate who does wrk in SEGA  in trouble by revealing the  source) Which no one in their right mind would do.

I'm not quoting facts or sources, just using some conmen sense. if Shenmue III was in full production with 200 staff working on it, it would have leaked out by now, even it was just a Twitter post)
Also there's quite a few AM#2 staff that left SEGA over the years, and I'm sure they've would have let slip Shenmue III is coming.


Shenmue III (for the Major consoles)   will only be fact, when AM#2 and SEGA fully present the game to the Media. And I'm not getting any hopes up for that at all, just like I'm not for Orta II or Saga II.


I'm sure SEGA want to make the game and finish the story, but that will take some money from SONY or MS imo.
SEGA will not fund or risk another Shenmue game will it did before, more so when this generation games are so costly and dwarf what it cost SEGA to make Shenmue 1 (DC version ) in the 1st place.


It cost SEGA 20 $million just to make the Japanese version on the DC, and that with DC graphics and modelling. God knows how much it would cost to model it on the 360 or PS3, where everything would have to be redone.