Yu Suzuki Q&A on Shenmue development at GDC 2014

Thought you all may be interested that Yu Suzuki will be holding a Q&A with translator Mark Cerny at GDC 2014

http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/26/5147744/shenmue-postmortem-yu-suzuki-gdc-2014


Do you think they will take questions from the audience? I think they will gloss over the Saturn development of Shenmue but we need someone from Assembler there to ask the hard hitting questions!

 

My questions:

Do they still have an archive of Saturn builds somewhere in Sega HQ?

Where exactly is this room?

Can you tell us the security rounds for the building?

What's the best way to sneak in there, if someone were dumb enough?

 

According to the text on the Polygon site, Yu Suzuki will be talking about the very early days of Shenmue when it was still known as Virtua Fighter RPG or Akira's Quest for the Saturn. So it's obvious he'll be talking about the Saturn version of the game. I just hope they show more footage of it.

 

It amazes me that Yu and Mark Cerny are friends - they must have talked Shenmue 3 even if it was just jokingly.


Be nice to see/learn more of the Saturn build

 

The session will be a classic gaming portmortem, GDC has had a handful every year recently. They've all been a blast, especially the old arcade postmortems. If this one is like the others, there will be a lot of background information on the original development of the game, finished off with a bit of Q&A, so yeah, definitely a chance to get in some interesting questions!

 

I want details on the VF3 Saturn builds!

 

ALOT of rumours considering shenmue 3 being a PS4 exclusive, And i hear sony are interested in both the Yakuza and Shenmue series on the whole.....don't want to get my hopes up, but interesting times indeed

 

If by "rumor" you mean "a picture of Yu Suzuki and Mark Cerny with a joke caption" then sure.

 

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/2157082/sony_wants_to_bring_shenmue_to_playstation.html

 

How does one port a non-existing game to a system?

 

I assume they mean HD versions of Shenmue 1 and 2

 

How is that a rumor proclaiming Shenmue III a PS4 exclusive?

 

All this 'pal'ing around sony?, the bogus trademark?, sony's mark cerny doing the translating for the 'post-mortem' and sony showing interest in it?

I suppose disscussion is a better word to use rather than rumors

Also, IF and i mean IF it does happen, I can't see sega doing this on their own because of the costs. They would probably need to be funded by either nintendo or sony (MS is pretty much dead in japan)

 

Realistically I don't see anybody doing this. Shenmue III wouldn't make any money. The series as a whole may have had the DC been successful, but now? I don't think it's likely. Shenmue II came out in 2001, and by today's "standard" Shenmue would be extremely dated. IF a Shenmue III is made, it won't be what Shenmue III would have been, and to that end, I'm OK with it not existing.

 

It will be very hard to live up to the hype for some people i agree also alot have moved on and the industry has changed i agree, but i would still like to finish the saga

If they released Shenmue 2 on the PS2 and even the GC instead of the original XBOX, the series would of probably done alot better on the whole

 

I think the only way Shenmue could have been successful is if the DC had been successful. Shenmue II sold like shit because one chunk of people bought it on DC, another on Xbox, and another just said screw it.

Had the DC lived and had Shenmue wound up being the epic saga on one machine it was supposed to be, I think it would have done well in the end. But the people that gave a shit about Shenmue were splintered after the death of the DC, so there was really no chance of it being successful afterwards (and there still isn't, unless it gets rebooted into something else entirely).

 

I think making Shenmue I & II HD would be a relatively minor gamble - I can definitely see it breaking even on the PS4. Even to those who haven't played the series, it would be one of the standout titles on PSN. Shenmue III will only ever happen if an HD remake of the first two is popular enough to finance it - I believe Payday has sold around 1 million copies on PSN, so those sort of figures would represent a big boost towards the development of further titles on the series, as happened with Payday 2 which saw the release of a physical copy following the success of the first one).

 

If we really can expect a full "post-mortem" of the Shenmue project, including its earliest stages of development, I'd like to know more about the various phases when it was still known by such codenames as Akira's Quest, Virtua Fighter RPG and Virtua AD - the latter still a name that can be found on AM2's old Japanese website, complete with official logo design! Also, more footage of the Saturn prototype would be interesting, especially if it can shed light on whether there were ever any working areas featuring more than just Akira/Ryo or other non-playable characters. Even better, such media would confirm that Sega at least have video material from this period still in their possession, if not actual test builds. Of course, anything from Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 would be welcome as well, but since the attention is on Shenmue, I'm just confident we'll at least get a teaser as to how the plot continued on beyond that cliffhanger ending in the second game, even if it's just a brief spoken comment from Yu Suzuki or Mark Cerny squeezing a hint out of him for the sake of fans desperate to know what happens next. Regarding the Saturn video we've already seen, I'm curious to know if the frame rate was manipulated in post production, as it's clear we're looking at a tape-sourced compilation edited to presumably keep a few things secret... perhaps now we'll finally get to see what was left on the cutting room floor? Additionally, how about some concrete details about the other documented Virtua Fighter spin-off, known only by the working title of Chicago?

 

Bumping thread to provide some good links as to what was discussed at the Yu Suzuki presentation at GDC 2014. Also I read that after the event he was surrounded by people just to talk to him or get an autograph. What a rock star!

http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/19/5527120/yu-suzuki-shenmue-gdc-2014-classic-game-postmortem

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/21/shenmue-development-bugs-included-cats-walking-like-people-and-e/

 

Very interesting. Learned a few things I had no idea about. Also, still nothing but cryptic information with regards to Shenmue III. *sigh*