Wednesday, September 27, 2017

SEGA Dreamcast: Collected Works Kickstarter | Shenmue Special Edition

"SEGA Dreamcast: Collected Works" is a Kickstarter funded book project that aims to be the authoritative resource on the Dreamcast console.

As a sign of immense public interest, the Kickstarter project became fully funded in mid-September after just 50 hours! And with 15 days still to go, pledges are nearing 1.5 times its original goal of £68,000.

Cover rendering of SEGA Dreamcast: Collected Works
Cover rendering of SEGA Dreamcast: Collected Works
Produced in collaboration with SEGA, it will feature hardware and software development documents, photographs of prototypes and rare hardware, in-depth interviews with the original game developers, high-quality game images and more.

Numerous games from the console's library will be covered, including of course Shenmue. (Hopefully an interview with Yu Suzuki can also be arranged, as was the case with the earlier Mega Drive book).

Plus, at the higher end of the reward tiers is a Shenmue Special Edition - further details below.

Sample rendering of the book's contents.
Sample rendering of the book's contents.
The project's creator, Darren Wall, has a proven track-record with Kickstarter, having run and successfully funded a similar book focusing on the Mega Drive called the "Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works" project in 2013 - online reviews such as this review from Den of Geek for that book speak extremely positively towards both the richness of the content and the high quality of its manufacture

In addition, a browse of the Kickstarter updates for that project reveals good communication with backers through open and regular updates, and Darren also responds back to many backer comments. This is a good sign for this new project being handled equally effectively.

Shenmue will be one of the games to be covered in the book, and of particular interest to fans will be that with each copy of the book obtained through Kickstarter will come a "high production Shenmue bookmark" - this is a Kickstarter exclusive and not available after the campaign.

Shenmue bookmark Kickstarter-exclusive reward
Shenmue bookmark Kickstarter-exclusive reward
A copy of the book is included at the £35 or more tier. For a significantly higher pledge of £150 or more, you will be able to obtain the Shenmue Special Edition. This edition comes in a Kickstarter-exclusive Shenmue slipcase, and each special edition is hand-numbered.

The Shenmue Special Edition is limited to 150 copies, and at the time of this post there were 93 remaining.

Regarding the difference between the special and normal editions, the creator comments that "The Shenmue special edition will be the same internally, but rebound in high quality materials and housed in our limited case. It will be a beautiful item – a significant cut above a typical special edition item!"

Shenmue Special Edition case render
Shenmue Special Edition case render

Link

Check out the project here on Kickstarter for more details.


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3 comments:

  1. This kickstarter is very, very similar to an incoming French book : "L'Histoire de la Dreamcast", at the Pix'N'Love Editions : https://www.editionspixnlove.com/les-bibles-du-jeu-video/803-l-histoire-de-la-dreamcast-shenmue-edition.html (only in french). Not yet release because SEGA is slow to give validation of the book, but it was expected at first for the end of December 2017.... and there are two limited edition : the Sonic Adventure one, and The Shenmue one, with a cover art very similar...
    The Kickstarter project is a little suspicious for me because of that, the announced features are very similar between the two... But maybe just an accident...

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    1. I didn't know about the Pix'N'Love Editions book, thanks for the information. Comparing them, they certainly seem quite similar in concept, even down to having a Shenmue edition cover slipcase. Hopefully each will have their own unique take & content.

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  2. waoo nice https://www.phantomriverstone.com/2017/09/sega-dreamcast-collected-works-shenmue.html

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