The ‘Shenmue 3’ Release Date Is Happening, But An HD Remaster? ‘Shenmue HD’ Domain Grabbed By Sega Europe

The Shenmue 3 release date is set for later this year, but we might also end up with remasters of the first two games in the process. It’s possible but unknown as Sega of Europe recently bought domains for “ShenmueHD” and “ShenmueRemastered.”

Shenmue was a Dreamcast title with an original premise at the time. It was the first “meta” game which ever gained commercial success, possibly due to playing the role of a video gamer who has to work for the things he wants. Of course, there were also the combat scenarios because what’s an open world video game without a fight or two? By today’s standards, it was a bit clunky, but the immersion was incredible back then.

You could even win various merchandise based on Sega’s other games by spending your forklift-operation earnings on Japanese vending machines. It was a Sega video game collector’s dream come true, even if the console itself was the victim of financial problems.

The PlayStation 4 has no such worries as it has become a serious competitor with the Xbox One for bestselling consoles. The PS4 outsold Microsoft’s console nearly every month since the two released, and it could be prime real estate for the most anticipated remasters since Batman: Return to Arkham.

Another possibility is that Sega of Europe is simply keeping anyone else from taking the domains mentioned above, as Games Radar reports. They have been asked about the possibility of a Shenmue HD remaster release, and Sega boss Jurgen Post said it was entirely workable, even if there are hurdles, according to Kotaku.

“It is a project from many years ago. If we are to do it, we’d want to do a fantastic conversion to the current platforms, and there are a lot of [licenses] in the game, which were cleared many years ago, so we will need to renegotiate those contracts. We are looking into it. We haven’t given it a green light, but it has our full attention.”

These words had been delivered last year when the trailers were revealed in a Kickstarter project for Shenmue 3.

A remaster could easily be a costly project, and there isn’t much guarantee that the public is going to buy enough copies to justify it. After all, when Ubisoft finally gave in and re-released Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations with a graphical upgrade, people who had been previously excited about it turned up their proverbial noses and called it a cash grab. The Ezio Collection basically turned up the detail on the original games without changing much of anything else, and it wasn’t well received.

Of course, Sega of Europe’s acquisition of the Shenmue domains also slightly mirrors what Ubisoft did prior to the announcement of the Ezio Collection. Ubisoft had purchased the domain “AssassinsCreedCollection,” which turned out to be just a collection of figures based on characters from the games. They had stayed silent as they worked on what we had expected.

As Ubisoft has no doubt learned from last year’s collection release, gamers can be picky. If a remaster isn’t perfect and noticeably superior to the original, most gamers won’t bother buying the same game twice. Many simply keep their PlayStation 3 and play the original instead of buying a slight upgrade for the PS4 due to a lack of backward compatibility.

This might not be as big a problem as the Dreamcast was one of those consoles not many people bought. Many gamers can’t simply take it out and play the original Shenmue again, so the possible PlayStation 4 release may be the only affordable way to brush up on their skills before tackling Shenmue 3. A Dreamcast and a copy of the original Shenmue could be expensive, especially with the memory units and CR2032 batteries.

A remaster is possible, but with all of the work and negotiations required, Sega might not think it’s worth the trouble to risk another under-performing remaster.

[Featured Image by Ys Net]