Dr.Henry_Killinger said:
I can't tell if Sega hates their fanbases or hates making money. |
Unfortunately (imo) the case of Shenmue is another in which the gamer looks back at the past with not enough objectivity.
- Shenmue on Dreamcast had a 89 Metacritic. This is very good (!), but considering that exclusive Dreamcast games usually get higher reviews than they would if they were multiplat... Like for instance Sonic Adventure 2 which had a 89 Metacritic on Dreamcast and a 73 on Gamecube even though the GC version came out less a year later and had more content... Considering this, it would be very difficult to make a case that Shenmue is the unequivocally "great" game that it is made out to be. No doubt its a very good game, but perhaps overrated due to the incredible love the DC gets on gaming forums.
(incidentally, the DC gets such love and praise but these vocal people didn't seem to buy one)
- Speaking of buying... Shenmue hardly sold through the roof. It did pretty well - selling roughly ~1.2 million (super guestimate). How big is the fanbase really?
- Shenmue 2 got a 80 Metacritic on Xbox and hardly set the world alight.
TLDR:
In conclusion, the perception of Shenmue as a megeton is not based on reality. It didn't garner the huge fanbase that people think it did, and didn't wow reviewers as much as people seem to think. For Sega to develop Shenmue 3 would cost a lot (!) of money and it is most certainly not guaranteed that they would recoup that.
Be realistic people.
Addendum:
- Shenmue exclusivity would give a console unprecedented bragging rights.
- I'm not dismissing the possibility that it might be a very good game. I doubt very much that it would be a great game.
