Random Shenmue III Thoughts

[BruceWayne911]

For sequels I agree they need everything they can get financially. And we have no clue if there will be more DLC for 3, probably one patch if we are lucky.

That said, I first played some ps3 titles /remasters for the first time on PS4, so you can still get new players for older titles.
They miss an opportunity if they don't at least release a 4k, 60fps patch for when it's played on PS5.

Are 4k 60fps patches expensive for gaming developers to produce? I genuinely want to know.

 

[Ryo2040]

I don't know, but I don't think so. I guess they just would need the highres assets/tell the ps5 to render it at a higher resolution/fps and that's it?
But does Sony still charge per patch?

 

[BruceWayne911]

I don't know, but I don't think so. I guess they just would need the highres assets/tell the ps5 to render it at a higher resolution/fps and that's it?
But does Sony still charge per patch?

I have zero knowledge on gaming development/ costs

 

[spud1897]

Yeah I just wish we knew what "fine" is. Do we get Shenmue 4 with a bigger or smaller budget? Is Shenmue even happening(100% confident it will)?

I'd guess smaller budget but who knows because it's all being kept very quiet.

Maybe they're waiting on the Steam and GOG releases. Cedric hasnt had the sales figures yet either.

I think Sony does charge per patch

 

[BruceWayne911]

I'd guess smaller budget but who knows because it's all being kept very quiet.

Maybe they're waiting on the Steam and GOG releases. Cedric hasnt had the sales figures yet either.

I think Sony does charge per patch

TBH maybe a smaller budget isn't a bad thing. I imagined with alot of resources already in place Shenmue would be easier to develop? IDK just shooting from the hip.

 

[spud1897]

TBH maybe a smaller budget isn't a bad thing. I imagined with alot of resources already in place Shenmue would be easier to develop? IDK just shooting from the hip.

Certainly some aspects would be, though I'm no developer. In theory you wouldn't need to build models of certain characters, could use some of the mocap that's already in place, the weather system, mini games etc. There's certainly gains to be made with what's already there.

 

[Ryo2040]

I think they could do more with the same budget, now that they have some stuff in place like knowledge of unreal, basic stuff of how they want to do certain things, main character models they can improve, fighting system,... and go from there
However, I think they should focus on closed areas full of content and polish everything as much as possible instead of expanding and not be able to fill the world.

 

[mjqjazzbar]

 

[Down by Law]

According to Google Translate

We are preparing a great competition for you for the month of August ... ️ We hope you are ready ...

 

[Marcin Gulik]

Shenmue merch contest?

 

[Down by Law]

It should be something like 'win this shenmue poster'

'and be an NPC in Shenmue IV' *MIC DROP*

 

[mjqjazzbar]

I just like seeing them still very much in the picture. Why support something that has no future, yknow? Gives me some optimism.

 

[Dietsoap]

Just out of curiosity: How many of you guys are planning to rebuy S3 when it releases on Steam and GoG? I should be getting a Steam key from fangamer or w/e when it releases, but I plan on buying a Steam key in addition to support the release. Probably give out the extra key to some rando on a general gaming site that seems at least mildly interested in the game.

 

[spud1897]

Just out of curiosity: How many of you guys are planning to rebuy S3 when it releases on Steam and GoG? I should be getting a Steam key from fangamer or w/e when it releases, but I plan on buying a Steam key in addition to support the release. Probably give out the extra key to some rando on a general gaming site that seems at least mildly interested in the game.

I'll grab one on steam outside of the copy I will get via fangamer. Probably gift it to a friend or something like that.

 

[Thomasina]

Just out of curiosity: How many of you guys are planning to rebuy S3 when it releases on Steam and GoG? I should be getting a Steam key from fangamer or w/e when it releases, but I plan on buying a Steam key in addition to support the release. Probably give out the extra key to some rando on a general gaming site that seems at least mildly interested in the game.

I'll probably grab one version but won't pay any more than $20 for it. I can wait for the right sale, another year if need be.

 

[spud1897]

France only but a great package for a prize!

 

[WuyingRen]

After seeing the news that Final Fantasy VII Remake had sold more than 5,000,000 copies, I found myself wondering how Shenmue 3 sales might be doing nearly a year on from release.

Anybody familiar with the old sales thread will know that I’ve looked at a number of different methods for estimating sales of Shenmue 3, but today I thought I’d try something a little different and instead compare some known values.

I compared the number of tracked players for both Shenmue 3 and FFVIIR on three of the main trophy sites and then combined this with the 5,000,000 figure that we have for FFVIIR to get an idea of how many users have played Shenmue 3 on PS4.

PSN Profiles: 3,714 vs 66,209 (5.6%) -> 280,000
True Trophies: 3,116 vs 70,520 (4.4%) -> 220,000
PSN TL: 4,174 vs 84,410 (4.9%) -> 245,000

Unfortunately however, these figures fail to take into account the error with Shenmue 3’s trophy data (players must unlock at least one trophy before the game is added to their account and becomes trackable by trophy sites) meaning that the number of ‘tracked’ players for Shenmue 3 is effectively incorrect on all three sites (in that there are registered users who have played the game but not been tracked as they should have been).

It’s difficult to say exactly how many players are not being counted, but by looking at trophy data for the first two Shenmue games on PS4, it seems that around 20% of people who played the games failed to unlock a single trophy.

Assuming the same is true for Shenmue 3, we get the following...

PSN Profiles: 4,643 vs 66,209 (7%) -> 350,000
True Trophies: 3,895 vs 70,520 (5.5%) -> 275,000
PSN TL: 5218 vs 84,410 (6.2%) -> 310,000

... for an estimate of somewhere between 275,000 and 350,000 players on PS4.

If you want a more optimistic outlook, we can look at growth (in terms of the number of Shenmue 3 players tracked by trophy sites) since December 12th of last year.

The number of tracked players has increased by 336% on PSN Profiles (851->3,714), 226% on True Trophies (956->3,116) and 120% on PSN Trophy Leaders (1,900->4,174).

If we go from the fourth of April this year instead, PSN Profiles shows growth of 56% (2,382->3,714), True Trophies shows growth of 68% (1,852->3,116) and PSN Trophy Leaders shows growth of 26% (3,300->4,174).

Without the proper points of reference (ie, without knowing exactly or even roughly how many copies were in circulation on these dates), it’s pointless trying to calculate a number for how many copies might be out there now, but it’s good to see that we’re still seeing a nice trickle of new players so far out from release.

More importantly, if Shenmue sales were considered ‘fine’ by the publisher in February and we’ve seen growth in sales of 50%+ since then, this - and a decent Steam launch - could be enough to turn that ‘fine’ into a ‘good’.

 

[spud1897]

I like the analysis above.

We will never likely know this but how many copies were sold at full price or since the price has dropped.

How would that impact the revenue stream to YSNET and Deep Silver.

Say it does 400k copies overall, which isn't bad. Would that be enough overall revenue to tempt someone in to invest.

 

[WuyingRen]

I like the analysis above.

We will never likely know this but how many copies were sold at full price or since the price has dropped.

How would that impact the revenue stream to YSNET and Deep Silver.

Say it does 400k copies overall, which isn't bad. Would that be enough overall revenue to tempt someone in to invest.

If the growth figures are anywhere near accurate, it seems that the majority of sales came after the game was discounted (which really didn’t take very long). If we assume that there have been 400k copies sold on PS4 (which in itself could be a bit of a stretch), I’d guess we’re probably looking at around 100,000 copies at $60 and around 300,000 at $30 - which would yield gross sales of $15m and net profit of about $7.5m. This is a bit of a disaster for a game with a $20m budget.

If we take the Kickstarter into account and the Epic deal provided a similar amount to other high profile Epic deals (around $10m), then the game will have made a modest profit - but I still don’t think publishers will see investing in a fourth game as a good idea.

For perspective, with a $20m budget the game would have needed to have sold just under 670,000 copies at full price to recoup its budget outright - which seems to be a considerable way off the amount of units shifted in the opening weeks/months.

YSNet being able to contribute a little towards the budget themselves and will probably come away with a very modest amount once Deep Silver have recouped their costs and other investors have taken their cuts - and this could be put towards a fourth game - but we’re probably talking a few million dollars at most.

At this point I think that pushing for an Epic Games Publishing deal is their best chance of securing funding for a fourth game (although I worry that Yu could have dismissed this offhand after the reaction to the exclusivity deal) - but even if a deal can be made, I think Yu is going to have to seriously scale back his ambitions. I was genuinely shocked when he announced that the total budget for three ended up being around $20m and don’t think there’s a chance in hell he’ll ever be trusted with that kind of budget again (for a Shenmue game).

It’s not often that I hope that I’m wrong, but I’d be more surprised if the actual sales figures were higher than suggested in the above post than if they were lower.

 

[mjqjazzbar]

I think 400,000 copies is more than enough. I am almost positive Deep Silver has greenlit sequels to games that have sold much less. I don’t even think the average Sonic game moves a million units these days—thinking back to Sega.

End of the day, Shenmue 4, if it exists, will likely look and play a lot like Shenmue 3.