The Shenmue franchise is one of the great tragedies of gaming, a great story left unfinished because the sales of the two games did not meet the expectations of the publisher. Coupled with development costs that supposedly ranged as high as $70 million, and this was before HD gaming. Well there is the possibility that Shenmue 3 might try to get the funding through a crowd funding source like Kickstarter.
Yu Suzuki the legendary man behind the Shenmue series in a recent interview told reporters that he is interested in getting the money for Shenmue 3 through a Kickstarter like project. Suzuki also came up with the idea of finishing the Shenmue story in a anime/manga, but would need to find a way to get the rights to the Shenmue franchise from Sega before moving forward with either idea.
As someone who loved the Shenmue games I would do anything to see the story finished. But even I must admit a Kickstarter for a game that cost $70 million to make seems a little out there. If the game were to keep the same graphical style as before and not update the graphics, it might actually be cheaper to make a Shenmue game now than before. But it would probably still be in the range of $30-40 million needed for a game on Shenmue’s scale.
What do you think; could Shenmue raise enough money to finish the story through Kickstarter?
Source: Joystiq
