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Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#31

Post by TheCoreh »

kayoone wrote: post #25
rtpg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it suck that they use Kickstarter? It's validating the idea, and helps to confirm that the market exists. Despite Shenmue's critical acclaim, it's not certain that the market exists. For comparison , Yakuza 1 and 2 (Yakuza is basically a spiritual successor to Shenmue in many ways) only sold 30k and 50k in the US market.

So this now reached it's funding goal with 30k bakers, why does that confirm the market exists when Yakuza selling 50k copies is considered a failure ?

30,000 people are willing to "buy" this game 2+ years before it even gets released within just 10 hours of it's "announcement". There are still 31 days to go on the kickstarter campaign, and a lot of people who didn't watch Sony's E3 presentation yesterday are waking up to the news of this right now.

That means once the game is released, has an actual marketing/advertising budget, and word of mouth spreads, it's probably going to sell significantly more than that. They are also certainly going to port Shenmue 1 and 2, (since a lot of people will want to play the originals) so those should also sell reasonably well.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#32

Post by joshuapants »

minimaxir wrote: post #29

For those asking "Why was this announced at the Sony event?", note that according to the rewards, Shenmue 3 will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive for consoles: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3

Could just be a timed exclusive because in the FAQ they said that they haven't decided on plans for other consoles.

I think it should be relatively trivial to port, at least to Xbox One and other PC platforms. The Wii U might take some extra effort to work within the constraints of the hardware, but I'm not sure.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#33

Post by agumonkey »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #13

Shenmue I was the most expensive game ever created at the time, costing around $70 million, on Dreamcast hardware. It took five years to develop. Realistically, how is $2 million going to be enough to fund a PS4-era sequel, presumably with completely new technology (based on the trailer)?

Things have changed drastically since then. Shenmue was the first virtual world of this size, nowadays you can leverage engines capable of that out of the box.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#34

Post by astrodust »

drKarl wrote: post #2

$100k per language subtitules? Really?

Google Translate isn't going to cut it, and hiring a professional translator that can handle the context and nuances will set you back that much.

Translating a movie is one thing, it's only a few hours of dialog. Games often have way, way more.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#38

Post by Narishma »

minimaxir wrote: post #27
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #13

Shenmue I was the most expensive game ever created at the time, costing around $70 million, on Dreamcast hardware. It took five years to develop. Realistically, how is $2 million going to be enough to fund a PS4-era sequel, presumably with completely new technology (based on the trailer)?

Bloodstained, a Castlevania-ish remake, notes that the Kickstarter money is to finish the funding while the remaining 90% came from external investors. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iga/bloodstained-ritual...

It's a new game, not a remake.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#39

Post by minimaxir »

joshuapants wrote: post #32
minimaxir wrote: post #29

For those asking "Why was this announced at the Sony event?", note that according to the rewards, Shenmue 3 will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive for consoles: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3

Could just be a timed exclusive because in the FAQ they said that they haven't decided on plans for other consoles. I think it should be relatively trivial to port, at least to Xbox One and other PC platforms. The Wii U might take some extra effort to work within the constraints of the hardware, but I'm not sure.

It's definitely not getting ported to the Wii U.

Re: Sony reaches $2m Shenmue III game target on Kickstarter within hours

#40

Post by passive »

wodenokoto wrote: post #16

They got a fair amount of time to promote this at Sony's E3 event, so I imagine that the value of the marketing already put into Shenmue III is worth more than those 2 million, which begs the question. If Sony is willing to promote this so much, why aren't they willing to invest? Or to put it bluntly: it fucking sucks when studios use Kickstarter when they are in no need of crowdfunding.

Are you suggesting that 15 minutes on the E3 stage is worth $2 million+? I suppose that's possible, but it seems high. Or maybe there are additional promotions you are referring to?
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