Sony has just confirmed that now that the Kickstarter goal has been reached they are in fact helping with funding and development of Shenmue 3

[Puppyroach]

Talal said:

Puppyroach said:

What would your views be if EA used Kickstarter for Fifa every year or Nintendo for the next Mario?

That would be completely different...

Sony doesn't own Shenmue. If they did own the game they would have funded it themselves for sure. If this had been done for one of their own games then trust me the reactions would be way worse.

No, the reactions would be the same, as fans we are sadly waaaay to adjustable to every new situation Sony/MS/Nintendo creates. In this case the excuse is "but the game will be made so what's the problem" yet we forget to think about how this very situation will affect the industry. This can become as harmful as paid DLCs are, which is another case where we as consumers could have said stop at an earlier stage.