Shenmue 3 Announced.. for Kickstarter

Sony has let Yu Suzuki, the creator of the Shenmue series, take the main stage at E3 2015 to kickoff the Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue 3.

For the past 12 years, fans have been asking creator and director Yu Suzuki about the third Shenmue game. Unfortuntaely, due to disappointing sales and high production costs, the first two games were labelled as financial failures. In fact, the first Shenmue was listed in the 2006 Guiness Book of World Records as the most expensive video game production of its time, costing over $70M to produce (equivalent to $100M based on inflation rates). Nevertheless, both Shenmue 1-2 continue to be remembered for being two of the greatest games of the Sega Dreamcast.

Sony allowed Suzuki to take the main stage at E3 in order to announce the Kickstarter campaign of Shenmue 3. This makes us wonder why didn't Sony just back the entire thing, but Sega still owns the rights to franchise, and the company has been losing interest in its properties that don't star a blue hedgehog. We're glad Sony gave Suzuki the stage in order to pretty much guarantee this crowdfunding campaign a success, as this is one we didn't want to see fail.

The Kickstarter for Shenmue 3 has gone live and hopes to get $2 million in pledges within the next month. Less than an hour after it was announced, Shenmue 3's campaign is currently sitting at over $770,000 in pledges. With 31 days to go, it's safe to say that this game is going to be finally made. We certainly wonder how Suzuki will handle Shenmue 3 with a much smaller budget, but we're just glad to see the series officially make a return.

Shenmue 3 is expected to launch in Aug. 2017 for PC and PlayStation 4 once its funded.

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