the greatest videogame creator that will ever life. he is now degradated to doing nothing basically.
Shenmue, Virtua Fighter creator leaving post at Sega
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Yu Suzuki confirms plans to vacate current position in September, will remain with publisher in advisory capacity.
Legendary designer Yu Suzuki is continuing to loosen his ties to his employer of nearly three decades. According to a Gamasutra report, the creator of seminal series like Virtua Fighter and Shenmue plans to leave his current post at Sega.
"In 2008, I established YS NET, my current company," Suzuki told Gamasutra. "I'll be leaving my current job at Sega this September, and after that point, I'll remain on as an advisor."
This won't be the first time Suzuki's role with Sega has diminished. In 2009, Suzuki "retired" from his position as a creative officer for R&D for the publisher, instead managing just the R&D efforts for the AM Plus division.
Sega won't be the only company receiving Suzuki's advice. Earlier this month, Tokyo-based studio Premium Agency announced that it had secured Suzuki's services as advisor and executive producer of game development. The company is currently working on smartphone games and a Kinect-enabled fighter.
After joining Sega in 1983, Suzuki quickly established himself with a succession of arcade classics, including Space Harrier, After Burner, and OutRun. However, the developer grew more experimental in later years, devoting time to projects such as the Ferrari F355 Challenge arcade game. The monstrous machine was eye catching, with three screens to provide players with better peripheral vision, but its laserlike focus on simulating driving a single model of car in painstaking detail limited its mass appeal.
Then there was the ambitious Shenmue series. Although it attracted a hardcore fan base, the first two Shenmue installments were not commercially successful, and a planned third game in the series never materialized. Although it has been more than eight years since the North American release of Shenmue II, Suzuki has said he still wants to make a third game in the franchise.
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.
121 comments
I almost cried when i saw this its like Miyamoto leaving Nintendo whats going to happen to Shenmue and Virtua Fighter?!?!?!?
@ Benifited Not in the sense of the recent obsession in Hollywood with making prequels to popular movies. I more meant Shenmue 1/2.
Shenmue must be at Dreamcast collection and Xbox live please make shenmue 1 and 2 remake for xbla and Shenmue 3 thanks
Anyone know why Shenmue wasn't on the Dremcast collection Sega made? I think its time they release both game on live already.
@psycho75: Yeah I thought it was odd that Shenmue II was released for the Xbox at first instead of the PS2, but then I read in to it. When Sega stopped making hardware and went software only, Sony bought the rights to games such as Virtua Fighter to be exclusive to their consoles. At the time Sony had the chance to buy the rights to Shenmue, but they never. Instead Microsoft acquired Shenmue II.
@dovberg You need to articulate your sentences better. Your rambling and ranting made no sense. Go to grammar school before you speak here, you joke.
sad to see him go , Yu Suzuki is a great game designer who has done much for video games (although perhaps not given enough credit for what he did) also its quite obvious the "advisory" position he still has means nothing in the long run. still , best of luck to him
Sega is long dead. They just serve to rape the franchises we once held dear. I wonder what Phoenix Rie is up to these days... Good luck, Suzuki-san.
darkslayer M Shenmue is the perfect game for nintendo Wii please make shenmue 3 in 2011 for the wii and xbox 360 shenmue 1 and 2 HD remake thanks:and why this game should be on your crapy garbage xbox360 only? ul probably needed 5 discs...bring it on the ps3....the most powerful console by far and and ofc blu ray >all.
They could add so much more to Shenmue nowadays, I hope I'm not dreaming and they actually think about remaking/finishing Ryo's saga.
There go my hopes for another competent Virtua Fighter. Now they're going to "pull a Sega" with the next incarnation in the franchise and drive the brand into the ground.
Noooooo!! Don't go! What will happen with Shenmue 3?? Guess it will never happen. The dream is over, guys. :((
I honestly don't get why Sega doesn't want to make Shenmue 3. Yakuza's engine would be a great foundation for it. I've never played Yakuza games but if the same developer made Shenmue I'd be all over it.
@KaBo0m Gaming is a lot different today than it was a decade ago. I'm surprised SEGA didn't look at the millions of copies of Heavy Rain sold and start development immediately.
I wonder whats going on behind the scenes to make Sega waste this mans talent and leave him doing practically nothing for the last 10 years. There must be a problem between him and his bosses or something like that because it just doesn't make sense. Unfortunately this could mean that shenmue 3 may never come out given sega's reluctance and Suzuki's departure. Duke Nukem's circumstances were totally different. Hopefully i'm wrong and we see a shenmue 3 sometime soon. Good luck to Suzuki in the future btw:)
Shenmue is the perfect game for nintendo Wii please make shenmue 3 in 2011 for the wii and xbox 360 shenmue 1 and 2 HD remake thanks
Per ogni Eric Chahi e Paul Cuisset che tornano a fare videogiochi ci doveva essere uno che si allontanava (in teoria non ha smesso per fortuna)... Mr. Suzuki con tutto il dovuto rispetto, dice di voler ancora fare Shenmue 3, ma se lascia la SEGA come BIP pensa di realizzarlo????
I don't think really means too much to most of us and to those saying that Shenmue being expensive makes him a huge problem for Sega are forgetting how some less popular series now days are seeing cheap sequels by using their original visuals etc(mega man specifically).
Sega would have been much better off without him. People can say what they want about Shenmue it but it ultimately cost sega millions upon millions of dollars because the series was such a failure in terms of sales vs cost production. Sure he might have been a great game developer, but at the same time can we really say that Sega benefited from him? No, we can't Anyone that thinks Sega should release Shenmue 3 does not know the history of Shenmue and should not expect Sega to create another game when the first two were such failures for them financially. Stop being selfish and just let Shenmue 3 go. It's not happening and Sega would be fools to create it
widdowson91 Yeah,sega and sony were rivals at the time,but they did the same mistake again after the Dreamcast death when they choose to release shenmue2 only for xbox...but who knows maybe some day they will consider a HDremake but even so they will need Suzuki to bring a conclusion to the story...sad loss indeed.
Well, there goes any future Virtua Fighter games. I was hoping Sega would jump on the bandwagon by releasing a 3DS version to go up against Super Street Fighter IV and Dead or Alive: Dimensions.
Its coming one day. I think that the Wii U Japanese garden tech demo was a hint at shenmue on Wii U.
wait , maybe he is leaving the company to form his own studio in order to make Shenmue 3 , sure the name won't be Shenmue because Sega owns the rights to that name , but he can name it anything and sell it as long as it is the successor for Shenmue 2.
I love shamru Was a great game both of them.. I ran my aunt crazy run in around with him.. She screamed out I tired of seeing that mans back!! Play something else.. It was that addictive.. I still want to know what happen to him.. I want to fight Lan D.. I would be so hype
@darkslayerM "SHENMUE 3 is the best game i ever played in my life" Could i borrow your copy?
@GameFan1983 you said it yourself, "people still remember and want another shenmue" there must be a very good reason for it don't you think? I'll be first in line for buying shenmue 3
SHENMUE 3 is the best game i ever played in my life best story , best game ever made now we want shenmue 3 and shenmue 1 and 2 remake for xbox 360 please
woah!!! almost a decade passed and people still remember and want another shenmue? I mean that game was fun and the music score was top notch, but in 2011 I don't this market will have a place for shenmue 3 or the likes. get over it ppl.
I remember the frist time I saw a Virtua Fighter part 1 Arcade machine, and everybody in the arcade was like "Oh Wow, those characters are in 3D !!! " Everything else was mostly 2D back then.
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