Shenmue III sales flopped

CyberPanda

CyberPanda

Banned
It looks like Shenmue III, the highly anticipated (by fans) continuation of the 2001 title, is not doing very well. The game debuted at number 17, and sold 50% less compared to Shenmue I & II remaster in the UK. The game also sold less than 18.000 units in Japan and received the fourth place in the console charts.

The game was first funded through Kickstarter with more than 80.000 backers. Sadly, the developers made a few decisions that upset many people. Also the game is very archaic in every form. Meaning fewer people will find interest in something like that in the year 2019.

Personally I was a big fan of the series and also a backer, but Ys Net disappointed me in every possible way.

Pieter's review is in the works so stay tuned for that.

Thanks Metro.
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www.dsogaming.com

Shenmue III sales flopped

It looks like Shenmue III, the highly anticipated (by fans) continuation of the 2001 title, is not doing very well.
www.dsogaming.com www.dsogaming.com
 
As someone who never played the original games nothing about this game said I would miss something interesting if I passed.
 
The game looks like one of those fan-made Unreal remasters, ya know, with assets that don't quite match the lighting style, but with somehow even less production value than those free downloads. I dunno how well it feels to play, but damn does it just look bad.
I got Shenmue 1 & 2 now from Humble, so I guess if I like those, I'll look into Shenmue 3 after it hits Steam. But it definitely doesn't look exciting.
 
Shenmue is just one of those games that people praise cause of its pedigree, not necessarily cause they played it.
 
The enthusiasm was definitely there until the stuff with epic and then Yu Suzuki pretty much saying the story won't be advancing. I may have posted this before not sure but any fans left shouldn't give up hope on a shenmue 4 as I epic is rich enough that I can see them funding one for an epic store exclusive.
 
Can't say I'm surprised. It was always going to be a niche title at best. I had hoped Suzuki would be able to deliver a game that could capture a mass audience (as I've read though it's a good game with some hardcore mechanics), but alas, it wasn't meant to be.
 
Shenmue was always shit. The first and second game are being remembered so fondly, because they had soul and were among the first games to offer an open world experience. The core gameplay, on the other hand, was always shit.
 
It was destined to fail.

It was a series built on a dying console, so even in its hayday it wasn't that popular. And it's been 18 years since Shenmue 2. Nobody knows what Shenmue is. The dreamcast-supremacist boomers that still enjoy it are a small group. Just as Shenmue 1 and 2 couldn't sell enough to save the Dreamcast, Shenmue 3 couldn't sell enough to save Shenmue.

In that intervening 18 years, it has been completely replaced by a better series that has improved and perfected everything Shenmue attempted to do, Yakuza. There is no reason to play Shenmue in a post-Yakuza world. Yakuza has better combat, better side quests, a better story, more things to do, less boring bs, more sega arcade games, etc.

Maybe next time plan on making a couple good games instead of planning to make 13 shit ones.
 
Honestly, I knew this game wouldn't sell great, but Yu and co did not do themselves any favor at all by releasing this game during the holiday season. Whoever thought that was a good idea was obviously fooling themselves.
 
I think most of the people who wanted to play Shenmue III have backed it up on the kickstarter and most of the people shitposting the Shenmue I+II never played them when they came out (or it's just not their type of games and they just came to this thread cause they were bored).
 
Epic won't accept crappy games
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EGS exclusivity is what made me decide to not bother with it, but perhaps they made the right decision financially... Hopefully they got a decent amount of cash from Epic.
 
And yet it's consistently been in the top 3 sellers on EGS so imagine how everything else is doing, lol. Some people took Epic's money with no regard for anything else in return for nobody actually playing the games to build a fanbase and demand for whatever they do next and it seems it wasn't even much money given how eager some of them are to get on Steam and try to drum up attention and make events out of it months prior. Hopefully the better stuff and the stuff that got there against the will of devs due to their publishers will do well as some do deserve to be played. Shenmue & II boxed DC copies (pal) are among the few stuff I've kept physical but I don't even care about Shenmue III any more, with this development they're not likely to ever finish the saga after all and only have themselves to blame. I liked what I saw of the game as unlike others I never expected a new Shenmue to be pioneering like the previous games were or some grand AAA open world shit, just be what they were in practice, small scale intimate adventure games with an interesting story of revenge and how that would twist and develop. But as a fan I'm not a commodity to be sold to EGS and have no more sympathy for Yu than he has for me. I wish none of this came to pass but it seems most likely given the apparent flop.
 
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Spukc said:
I just bought yakuza zero and 6
Am i weird for thinking those games are just shemnue? 🤔
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Inaccurate rather than weird. Saying that Shenmue is just like an older Yakuza is like saying that Yakuza is just the Japanese GTA (an opinion that was widespread among people who had never actually played the games, something that has thankfully been set straight since the popularity of Yakuza 0 has meant that many more people actually got to experience the it for themselves). Just as Yakuza and GTA superficially appear to be similar games (open world gameplay, plot involving organised crime), so do Shenmue and Yakuza.

TUROK said:
Shenmue is just one of those games that people praise cause of its pedigree, not necessarily cause they played it.
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I take the opposite view - the people who shit on Shenmue the most are those who have never played it and who have never had any intention of ever playing it (as evidenced by the frequent, and inaccurate, comparisons to Yakuza). Shenmue 3 has the added bonus of attracting two small, but vocal, groups of haters - kickstarter haters and Epic Games haters (seriously, modern console fanboys are sad enough given how little difference there is between them these days, but PC Storefront fanboys represent a whole new low).

As for Shenmue 3 itself, the sales aren't looking great, but we don't know what expectations the publishers had so won't know how this bodes for Shenmue 4. Shenmue 1&2 HD were only $30 for 2 games, whereas Shenmue 3 is $60 for one game, so perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising that the former sold more. Also, the most hardcore 70k fans had already received the game via Kickstarter, so they should be added to total sold to get a more accurate picture of the game's popularity. Of course, that Castlevania kickstarter still managed to sell well to the wider public, so it looks that the appeal of a game like Shenmue is smaller than a traditional metroidvania. Let's see how the story DLC sells.

Whatever happens, I'm glad that we got the third instalment and would happily back a fourth.
 
I just cant believe after 18 years he still didnt decide to wrap it up a bit more. In some arenas i would respect that decision greatly, but here it feels a bit like trolling, no way will this story ever be completed which kind of makes the whole thing pointless. He should have condensed it down and released it episodically DLC wise, like a Walking Dead or LiS type apporach.
 
Kazza said:
I take the opposite view - the people who shit on Shenmue the most are those who have never played it and who have never had any intention of ever playing it (as evidenced by the frequent, and inaccurate, comparisons to Yakuza). Shenmue 3 has the added bonus of attracting two small, but vocal, groups of haters - kickstarter haters and Epic Games haters (seriously, modern console fanboys are sad enough given how little difference there is between them these days, but PC Storefront fanboys represent a whole new low).
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Did you miss the part where i said i played it for 6 hours, but thiink its arguable the worst game this gen?.
Cut out the fanboy generalizing and stop pretending that people are hating on the game for reasons other than the fact that the game blows
 
Loved the original (played it on DC)

Gave them $350 on Kickstarter

They went with Epic

I got a refund and splurged on Steam games

I would have cared at one point in time, but I don't anymore.
 
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I never believed for a second this game would sell. Gamers are not the same in what they seek as they were back then, and this game did nothing to make itself seem like anybody outside of a diehard Shenmue fan should buy it. This is example number 1 for me that not all games need to be brought back, I can easily see Beyond Good and Evil 2 following this same trajectory TBH. Some of the best loved franchises just aren't made for the mass market current gamers who just want indy/mobile/AAA/COD stuff. If you can't make these games on a smaller budget and create some good word of mouth you will fail.
 
Stuart360 said:
Did you miss the part where i said i played it for 6 hours, but thiink its arguable the worst game this gen?.
Cut out the fanboy generalizing and stop pretending that people are hating on the game for reasons other than the fact that the game blows
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Calm down. There's no need to get upset that other people enjoy a game that you didn't like.

"the people who shit on Shenmue the most..." and "everyone who shits on Shenmue..." are not the same meaning, no need to take offence. I stand by what I wrote.
 
It's a niche game for a very specific (and small) fanbase. If you are depending on crowdfunding from a loyal fanbase to make and sell your game, you don't break early kickstarter promises.
 
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No surprise, I saw even Shenmue 1 and 2 above it for a few days on amazon.

I thought of buying it....then I saw Judgement was on sale for 20$ for Black Friday and said fuck that.
 
TheDuskwalker said:
No surprise, I saw even Shenmue 1 and 2 above it for a few days on amazon.

I thought of buying it....then I saw Judgement was on sale for 20$ for Black Friday and said fuck that.
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Judgment at $20 is definitely a better deal. I expect Shenmue 3 to be around $30 by the time it launches on Steam next year
 
Shenmue and Yakuza aren't that similar. Shenmue is a life simulator, whereas Yakuza is more of an action game.

This doesn't surprise me though. There was no hunger for Shenmue 3 outside of its existing fanbase.
 
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Idk what the publishers expectations for the game's sales were but I hope we can get Shenmue 4 somehow because I'm absolutely loving my time with Shenmue 3.
 
Not surprising really.
- They didn't release proper remakes for Shenmue 1 & 2.
- There was barely any marketing and since this is a continuation of the story no reason to play if you don't know 1 and 2.
- Shenmue 3 also feels like it's still stuck in the past (based on the gameplay videos I've watched).
- This was mostly a kickstarter project for the fans of the previous games...
- ...who then ended up getting screwed when the studio signed a deal with Epic
 
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