Understanding Sony's Role in Shenmue 3

Lizzy Finnegan

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Understanding Sony's Role in Shenmue 3



Many fans were confused after learning about Sony's direct involvement in Shenmue 3, but it's simpler than you may think.

Sony blew away the media and fans alike during their 2015 E3 showcase, especially when they brought developer Yu Suzuki on stage for the announcement [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e3-2015/14121-shenmue-3-kickstarter-announced-at-playstation-e3] that a Kickstarter had been created to bring fans the long anticipated title Shenmue 3.

Recently, it was revealed that Sony will be a partner in creating Shenmue 3, although there is no mention of this partnership on the the opposite [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3/description].

"Recently a developer told us that they were bringing back a fan favorite to Kickstarter for PC and PS4. Now, this is very much their project, but we wanted to celebrate their announcement on our stage. Since this has been a game that Playstation fans have been very, very, very vocal about."

However, during the Playstation E3 Experience livecast [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUh5_BdJrl8], Playstation's Director of third party production and developer relations Gio Corsi made Sony's involvement clear.

"We said the only way this is going to happen is if the fans speak up, and we thought Kickstarter was the perfect place to do this."

"Sony and Playstation is very much a partner in this game and it's going to be run through third party production, and we're going to help YS Net get the game done," Corsi continued. "And we're going to be partners on it the whole way."

While many seemed concerned over this omission, it appears that Sony's role is not as hands-on as people are assuming.

Engadget [http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/17/an-intimate-chat-with-sony-playstation-shuhei-yoshida/] spoke with Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida, who explained a bit further Sony's involvement. "It's a very exciting project and there are lots of PlayStation fans asking for it. But it's a Sega IP and of course Suzuki Yu-san is the creator. So somehow Suzuki-san was able to work out with Sega to allow them to Kickstart the project. And because we liked the project, our third-party relations team struck a deal to help Kickstart the campaign at the E3 conference. That's great PR."

Adam Boyes later stated [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dL198n2d0o] "we're backing it as well... we're putting scratch in" but that the title will be self-published with Sony helping with the marketing. Had Sony made the decision to fully fund Shenmue 3, Boyes estimates that two years would have been dedicated solely to showing there is a demand for the game, then the process to secure funding would begin, then development would start. Also, in the case of full funding, Shenmue 3 would have been a first party title for Sony, which likely would have waded into murky water as far as licensing from Sega was concerned, as well as with Yu Suzuki's role in the development process.

Yu Suzuki hosted an say [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ahcwf/i_am_yu_suzuki_new_posting/] "I will say this: if we reach the $5 mil mark, one of the things I really want to do with Shenmue 3 will become a reality. At $10 million, it will truly have the features of an open world."

Shibuya Productions President & CEO Cedric Biscay, Co-Producer for Shenmue 3, addressed Sony's involvement briefly in several tweets, including one that wrote [https://twitter.com/CedricBiscay/status/612504077658923008] "SONY will not get any money from the KS, they will help to finance the PS4 version and will also help for advertisement."

In 2011, Suzuki told Destructoid [http://www.destructoid.com/yu-suzuki-teases-shenmue-3-at-gdc-though-not-guaranteed-195502.phtml] that Shenmue, released in 1999, cost $47 million to make.

At the time of this posting, Shenmue 3 is the seventh most funded game Kickstarter of all time [https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=12&sort=most_funded] with nearly $3.5 million pledged and 26 days remaining.



1.The E3 reveal of Shenmue 3 begins at 46:40 of this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMnXzpBPToI].

2.The Shenmue 3 interview begins at 2:44:06 on this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUh5_BdJrl8], with Corsi discussing Playstation's involvement at 2:49:28.

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MoltenSilver

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Does anyone else see the start of a really disturbing trend here?
Publisher: "We'd like to make this new game, really, it's just that we want the fan base to prove to they want it... by being the people to take the responsibility for funding it and risk of failure off our shoulders despite our immense financial power"
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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Jul 15, 2013
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Well that clears up something I never knew needed clearing up. Alas, Tis the way of the tinternet.

I'm a fan of seeing this series complete one day, but I am unsure of going to kickstarter for it. It's just...i feel a little worried the game's formula may have aged a bit. I was young and easily impressed by good graphics, dramatic storytelling and rifling through various people's bedside drawers, so the menial jobs in that game with either terrible collision detection or repeatative QTE prompts were easily skimmed over. But that just won't cut it nowdays.
The action scenes with QTEs are understandable, I guess. But they need to add some fresh gameplay ideas. The living, breathing, working world was great though. It felt like a real, inhabited place. Yet again, more impressive for its' time.

I dunno, it would be nice to see what they have planned at least.
 

Eiv

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Is it wrong that when they announced it, I cried a little? Exactly like that blonde fella in the audience, I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

I never asked for this
Sep 8, 2011
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Too much political nonsense to hide the fact that Sony is practically benefiting from this like a publisher would.
People who fund this kickstarter are saps. That's it. If you think that other publishers won't try to do the same for some of the older IP's you're dead wrong. And impulsive as they are, gamers will gladly give in to them. And pretty soon we'll have billionaire publishers asking money from fans to even consider making a game. As if pre-orders weren't bad enough, gamers are willing to pay for a fuckin' idea! So sad. I applaud Sony for this. They didn't just make a great business deal, but they've revealed just how naive and prone to being taken advantage of gamers can be. Jesus fuckin' Christ.
 

Imperioratorex Caprae

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May 15, 2010
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Its nice to see a publisher that's not really publishing a title still hold it up and agree to market it despite them not necessarily being behind the IP at all.
Some might see this as a bad thing but really I'm quite excited that Shenmue is getting the final note it deserves and is being handled by people who are directly involved with the original. That Sony allowed them to use their stage at E3 is, IMHO, an awesome way of being supportive of 3rd party titles. If more publishers could realize that they don't need to own every developer in-house, and can be involved without lording over the IP, maybe more great games could be made without corporate bullshit politics getting in the way.
 

Cowabungaa

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Hm, did not know that, at first I thought Sony wasn't monetarily involved. I'm not too sure I like seeing big publishers get involved in Kickstarters. I love Kickstarter for its grassroots nature. A big publisher doesn't belong in an ecosystem like that, hell you could say it's meant to escape the big-pub ecosystem.

As it stands now, Sony is sort of profiting from small-time folks' money. And I don't like the sound of that.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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MoltenSilver said:
Does anyone else see the start of a really disturbing trend here?
Publisher: "We'd like to make this new game, really, it's just that we want the fan base to prove to they want it... by being the people to take the responsibility for funding it and risk of failure off our shoulders despite our immense financial power"
That's not quite what is happening here. Sony's financial role in this appears to be more akin to a minor investor than that of a traditional AAA publisher arrangement where the publisher takes all the profit and then just pays the developer an agreed upon amount. Yu has made it very clear that the Kickstarter is what is going to determine the scope of the game, not outside funding. Sony isn't making this game in the way that EA made Dragon Age Inquisition. This isn't even like the Bloodstained Kickstarter where 90% of the funding was already promised.

The main problem here is that the Kickstarter itself is being badly managed. All of this should have been made clear up front. Even if Sony was providing substantial development funds, at least having that in black and white on the KS page would have let people make informed decisions, and really, people should know by now that when information is unclear, the Internet will assume the worst.

Here's a video from a long time Shenume fan helping to explain the situation.

 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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WolvDragon said:
Considering how great The Witcher 3 was with a smaller budget then most Triple A games, I wonder what Shenmue 3's budget will be like, surely more then the KS money for sure.

And this is why I'll never donate to KS, one for the risk of the product actually failing, and thus losing my money in the process, and funding a product that's actually being backed by a major corporation who rather not risk their own funds but let the little people do it.

Yeah no, if this becomes the precedent, major corporations letting people fund their product without or little risk of their own side, then we're letting our corporate overlords screw us even more then they do with governments.
It's not Sony's product, and Ys Net is a small developer run by one of the gods of Japanese gaming development, not a major corporation.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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WolvDragon said:
Scars Unseen said:
WolvDragon said:
Considering how great The Witcher 3 was with a smaller budget then most Triple A games, I wonder what Shenmue 3's budget will be like, surely more then the KS money for sure.

And this is why I'll never donate to KS, one for the risk of the product actually failing, and thus losing my money in the process, and funding a product that's actually being backed by a major corporation who rather not risk their own funds but let the little people do it.

Yeah no, if this becomes the precedent, major corporations letting people fund their product without or little risk of their own side, then we're letting our corporate overlords screw us even more then they do with governments.
It's not Sony's product, and Ys Net is a small developer run by one of the gods of Japanese gaming development, not a major corporation.
Well I disagree YS is a "god" but to each their own, my points still stands about corporations letting people fund their prodcuts and not investing the money themselves.
Your point doesn't stand. It's not Sony's product.
 

Scars Unseen

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May 7, 2009
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Even that wouldn't matter as far as the issue of Kickstarter goes. There are a lot of console exclusive deals made on games that aren't owned by the console manufacturer. Certainly, I could understand someone not wanting to back a project that was exclusive to a console they neither owned nor planned on buying(though at least here PC is also an option), but that's not really related to Kickstarter itself.

What matters is whether the IP and/or development is controlled by an outside agency, and who gets the profits from the project. In this case, the IP is owned by Sega, not Sony, the development is controlled by Yu himself, and the profits aren't known 100%, but they certainly aren't going to Sony in the manner of a typical publisher/developer relationship.

There is room here for speculation, even some bit of healthy skepticism, but the outright condemnation that people are throwing at this project is largely based on fabricated claims and baseless assumptions spread through the rumor mill, so accusations thrown at the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter should be treated with at least equal suspicion.
 

hentropy

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Feb 25, 2012
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Clarification on Sony's involvement after a whirlwind of differing reports is nice, and it seems pretty clear what the roles of the various entities are here. I have no problem with Sony marketing the game and supporting it that way. I think the biggest risk if publishers have too much involvement is that they will try to make changes to the game, and I think quite obviously Suzuki is going to make a true continuation of the game series.

Xsjadoblayde said:
I'm a fan of seeing this series complete one day, but I am unsure of going to kickstarter for it. It's just...i feel a little worried the game's formula may have aged a bit. I was young and easily impressed by good graphics, dramatic storytelling and rifling through various people's bedside drawers, so the menial jobs in that game with either terrible collision detection or repeatative QTE prompts were easily skimmed over. But that just won't cut it nowdays.
The action scenes with QTEs are understandable, I guess. But they need to add some fresh gameplay ideas. The living, breathing, working world was great though. It felt like a real, inhabited place. Yet again, more impressive for its' time.

I dunno, it would be nice to see what they have planned at least.
Having played the game a little while ago after not playing it for a very long time, I have to say that it actually holds up pretty well. Let's face it, the appeal of the game was never really in the QTEs or even the free battle stuff. The graphics still hold up surprisingly well, character models were always well designed and felt natural. And since no one has tried to make a real game like it since, the game still feels fresh and unique. Not without the problems it always had, of course, but it hasn't aged like milk either.
 

gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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MoltenSilver said:
Does anyone else see the start of a really disturbing trend here?
Publisher: "We'd like to make this new game, really, it's just that we want the fan base to prove to they want it... by being the people to take the responsibility for funding it and risk of failure off our shoulders despite our immense financial power"
I honestly dont see whats so disturbing about it, the main reason why publishers dont make games like Shenmue anymore is because others like it failed to make a return on the investment, and with no others like it being made its difficult to gauge consumer interest.

And thats what theyre really doing, gauging interest by inviting people to vote with thier wallets. That 2-3m raised so far would never be enough to cover the development of the whole game.

And im happy for this development anyway, since it means more (hopefully) high quality content and i didnt even need to buy a PS4 or sign up to Kickstarter to be able to benefit.
 
Mar 26, 2008
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Are Sony feeling some pent-up guilt over being partly responsible for the Dreamcast's demise and sending Sega out of the hardware game?