As a Shenmue fan I'm happy theres a chance it will live but I can't say I'm particularly confident at how its going to turn out.
Seems like its being mishandled, if all Sony are offering is marketing and the PS4 port... well I can't say that means much to me.
This whole $10m thing seems like a moving goal posts thing considering how much it cost originally, the Kickstarter is extremely unlikely to get that high and even if it does, don't they lose a ton of it in fees, taxes and physical products? Im not really sure what sort of actual game we'll get from it really.
I backed it for $29 which is the most I've put into a Kickstarter so I've done my bit. I feel like this hasn't been thought through, why didn't they start by getting Shenmue 1/2 up on Steam/PSN? Generate interest, work on the partnership then use the proceeds of that to "test the market", get relatively easy income and also potentially find themselves a whole new group of fans who might then be interested in investing in the Kickstarter?
Im less bothered about it being confined to PC/PS4 (although they should get Linux/Mac on there) because I highly doubt WiiU, 3DS and Vita will exist so much December 2017 (not enough to warrant committing to them anyway) and I doubt they could guarantee NX at this point, they'd need a time machine to work out if that was worth it too. Xbox was probably a no given Sony's involvement
Also, $400k of the stretch goals are for subtitle in 4 european languages? I mean... were they just not going to release it in those countries or something?
I really hope it turns out well, but I won't be getting my hopes up.
I agree, for the magnitude of polish and scope of gameplay we are all expecting from Shenmue I can't see this ending well unless a major publisher steps in and takes the reins. The only way this will happen is if Sega just flat out sells the IP (why are they even holding onto it?).