Bull shit. They put the game on their stage without funding. Certainly unlikely at this point, but it could have been nothing. If Sony actually believed in it they WOULD have funded it instead of getting you guys to do it. They knew there was interest in the game or esle it wouln't have been on the stage at all, they just saw a chance to have their customers pay for something out of their pocket instead of taking the chance on it. Only time will tell how well the game actually sells especially since the originals, despite how much fondness there is for the games now, did not sell well.

Possibly, but it seems to me that they knew there was going to be lots of initial interst in it or else it wouldn't have taken main stage at all.

1.3 millions in a matter of minutes. Hype !
At this point it's not anymore about wether it will be funded or not, but how far this will stretch.

1.3 now. Jesus, can it get to 10 million?

It will easily reach it and great that Yu gets to complete the saga.

My problem with kickstarter is that it's like pre-ordering a game literally years before release, without the option to cancel. In the case of most games, you can justify it because they're small time and they actually NEED the kickstarter money to fund development. Shenmue III clearly already has some backing from a mega corporation, so it feels kinda like a ripoff to be running a kickstarter for it.

I mean, announcing a Kickstarter during an E3 conference of all things. I never thought I'd see the day.

That. It's 6-7 am in western europe, i guess most people here didn't watch the best conference(opinion) yet. Also not sure if Asia has a strong following of E3 so they would get the news after some time too.

I wonder what kind of stretch goal they can pull to motivate people to 10 millions. The pledges are full preorder price (except digital) so there is no reason to pledge just to get the game.

is this really ps4/pc only or did they just give it to sony to show off first? I won't buy it if there's no physical copy on a home console.

With the exception that a kickstarter is an idea as opposed to pre-ordering a game that is actually in development and likely close to released. Although, the whole pre-order idea is totally flawed as well. Games being sold on hype whent they aren't even finished is just bunk.

There is no guarantee that a kickstarter will come out, or when. But at the same time, like you said, it's like a pre-order. There is still no guarantee for that either.

I don't think it's a win-win though. Sure it carries the name shenmue, but what if the game sucks ass? What if it's already made for the dreamcast but wasn't released and will just get ported? What if it's a glitch fest? There are a whole shit ton of what if's here and nothing to protect the consumer in any way if it is garbage. They could release a 2D side scrolling 30 frame game with two lines of text and call it Shenmue 3 and it's still technically released.

Yeah, I'm cynical with this stuff, I'm not going to deny it. It just seems like a way to screw the consumer.

I question whether a few million is enough to make the game that fans want. Shenmue 1 took $47million ($67mil with inflation), so why would this game be so drastically cheaper. From what has been shown, it looks to be far from the graphical showcase the original two were and it seems like virtually no work has been done on it.

I have my doubts