Shenmue 3 - Kickstarter Secures Sony's Co-financing

Gorath

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You didn't really believe a AAA title like Shenmue 3 could be made for 2 million dollars, did you? As it turned out, the Kickstarter was meant to prove there is indeed sufficient demand for a new Shenmue game. On that condition Sony agreed to co-finance the game. As you already know, Ys Net's Kickstarter campaign succeeded within a day. So Sony is officially on board now. Kotaku has some infos:

With Shenmue III, the rest of the money seesms to be coming from Sony. How much? No idea.

"Sony and PlayStation is definitely a partner in this game," said Corsi, "and it's going to be run through third-party production. We're going to help Ys Net get the game done, we're going to be partners on it the whole way, and really excited to see this thing come out in a couple of years."
In an interview with Engadget Sony Playstation's Shuhei Yoshida revealed this whole PR stunt wasn't their idea:

So I want to switch gears a little bit. I want to talk to you about Shenmue and crowdfunding. That was announced onstage on Monday and it's at about $3 million now. So let me ask you: Why did Sony PlayStation decide to allow that crowdfunding announcement as opposed to funding it?

Ah, no, no, no. 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.
More information.
 
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Fine by me as Forbes confirmed it a few days back. Just think of the kickstarter as a way for Sony to take pre-orders, and to see if there was enough interest in the game.

Anyway I now get to finish the saga, and on the PC this time.:cool:
 
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Shenmue fans should be very happy that Sony is co-funding this game…
Shenmue 2 currently ranks as the 6th most expensive game ever made, at $132M... I don't see this Kickstarter campaign paying for much more than the opening cinematic.
 
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Is it just me or did they lose about 500k in pledges after this announcement?
 
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It's too bad for the xbox fans that don't have a ps4 that are interested in this game.

As for me...I'm torn I ever only played the first one on the dreamcast....and although it had awesome potential I felt it never really lived up to what I thought it would be...it was however awesome for it's time in the graphics department.
 
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If Sony is putting up half the money, surely they will expect some control in return? At that point it's not really an indie effort.
 
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Of course it's no indie game. While details weren't disclosed, it sounds like Sony isn't putting up half the money. More like 70-90%. Making a 10M$ follow up to a 100M$ game wouldn't make much sense. It's completely unclear how much of the funding comes from Suzuki's company and from Sega.
Speculation: I guess Suzuki provides the Kickstarter money, Sony the rest and Sega nothing but they get a license fee. This gives Sega risk free profit, Ys Net a better deal than usual - they do bring money to the table, so it's no simple contract work - and Sony is generally in control while they get a relatively low risk project with attractive boni like great PR for the PS4 and community goodwill.

edit: Japan is one of the most expensive countries in the world. Development there must be considerably more costly than in central Europe for example.
 
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