SEGA's "Return to Dobuita Street" Video (feat. Adam Koralik & Imran Yusuf)

Phantom River Stone checks out the recent video released by SEGA which features Adam Koralik and Imran Yusuf in real-life Dobuita, and adds a few comments about some of the locations visited.

Earlier in the year, SEGA brought two Shenmue fans, YouTuber Adam Koralik (link to Adam's YouTube channel) and comedian Imran Yusuf (official website), over to Japan and filmed a video in Ryo's hometown of real-life Yokosuka on Dobuita Street and the surrounding area.

The day of filming, 13th April 2018, was the day before they attended the SEGA Fes 2018 event held in Tokyo at which the Shenmue I & II collection was announced for modern platforms. (The collection is scheduled for release on August 21st for most countries; in Japan an official date has not yet been announced as of this post).

• Related post: The Announcement of Shenmue I & II | On-the-Ground Report
• Related post: Shenmue I & II Announcement Video (with English Subtitles)

The video oozes professional quality (which comes as no surprise) and contains a mixture of real-life footage, on-location commentary from the two and some in-game footage from the upcoming collection. Watch the video below, hosted on Adam's channel:

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Shenmue I & II Announcement Video (with English Subtitles)

The announcement of the planned 2018 release of Shenmue I & II for modern platforms was an awesome event for fans all over the globe.

• Related post: check out Switch's on-the-ground report of the presentation

With the live event being held in Japan, the primary language for the announcement was of course Japanese. Although "Shenhua" the official interpreter was present on stage for the main part of the announcement, not everything that Sega Sammy CEO Haruki Satomi said was translated - so we have added translated subtitles for those parts.

View the subtitled video below. A written transcript of the Japanese translations follows the video in this post.

Note: during the interaction Haruki Satomi makes one or two comments in Japanese that could be interpreted as being made at John Clark's expense. However I believe these were meant in a spirit of fun and were not intended to be disrespectful.

Transcript (Translations from Japanese only)

Haruki Satomi [HS]: SEGA FES 2018 starts from today. We held Sega Group's first one, as a trial, in November 2016. At that time, we ran a live show late at night over a period of 48 hours. Back then, "work-style reforms" and ""exploitative corporations" weren't really a thing, so the employees worked through for 48-hours.

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Toshihiro Nagoshi on Yu Suzuki | Sega Fes Livestream

Sega video game producer & designer Toshihiro Nagoshi was asked his opinion on Yu Suzuki in a Q&A livestream session earlier today.

Despite having some "huge arguments" in the past when they worked together, Nagoshi holds Suzuki in great respect.

Source: YouTube video (Japanese)

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The Announcement of Shenmue I & II | On-the-Ground Report

Sega's announcement last weekend that Shenmue I & II would be coming to modern platforms set the Shenmue community on fire. Interestingly, they chose to make the announcement at their SEGA FES 2018 event in Japan. While some fans around the world watched it on live-stream, many caught the news the next morning when they awoke.

I was lucky enough to attend the presentation in Tokyo. I recount my experience below.

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It's Really Happening! Shenmue I & II Coming to Modern Platforms in 2018

A day later and it is still taking time to sink in for many of us fans!

Following some teasing tweets from both SEGA Europe and Koch Media on the evening before the SEGA FES 2018 event in Tokyo, Shenmue fans have at last been rewarded for their years of hope and patience with an official announcement from SEGA that Shenmue I & II will be coming to modern platforms in 2018.

Here's a summary of information about the release (information gathered from GameInformer, Steam, Adam Koralik)

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"HUGE announcement" to be made at SEGA FES

Shenmue fans have been sent into overdrive as the fires of speculation are stoked by some explosive tweets just hours away from the start of the SEGA FES 2018 event.

The first tweet, from SEGA Europe's account, promises a "HUGE announcement" that "you DO NOT want to miss", to be made on the event's first day:

Link to tweet

Now, a tweet from SEGA is something that of course is to be taken with a grain of salt by Shenmue fans.

However this tweet soon afterwards received a comment from none other than Koch Media, the worldwide publishers of Shenmue III, asking rhetorically whether anyone has any idea what it might be - and including a winking emoticon:

Link to tweet

A further comment from SEGA Europe was even more direct. A Twitter user suggested that "if it's anything other than Shenmue I & II HD it's not a huge announcement". This was met with the reply: "It's HUGE!".

Link to tweet

Shenmue of course has not been specifically mentioned, however Koch Media's participation here is highly suggestive. It is also worth noting that the voice actor for Ryo Hazuki in the Japanese version of Shenmue, Masaya Matsukaze, will also be on site at the venue tomorrow (although ostensibly for the promotion of a different game, called Readyyy!).

It is certainly worth keeping a close eye on the SEGA FES sessions tomorrow, all of which will be live-streamed. (I myself will be there in person with the hope of catching the announcement while I am there).

• See our recent blog post for the English event schedule and information about the live-stream links.

Could this be the Shenmue HD announcement the fans have been waiting for all this time? As always, it may be something quite different so keeping a level head is advised to avoid disappointment - but we will have our answer very soon!

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SEGA Fes 2018 English Schedule & Information | 14-15 April 2018

SEGA will be holding a festival event, "SEGA Fes 2018", this weekend on April 14th and 15th at the Belle Salle Akihabara building in Tokyo.

This is SEGA's second such event, with the first one having been held in November 2016. This year's event also promises to be packed full of exciting presentations and entertainment. Furthermore, there will be live-streaming of all the events on YouTube and elsewhere.

The attractions include:

• Stage events (B1 level): promising special guests, the latest information on recent games, "surprise announcements", gameplay competitions, and more!
• Giant Attractions (1F level): there will be a huge UFO Catcher (crane game) using a person to grab the prize instead of a crane; a giant Mega Drive (Genesis) controller for playing retro games like Puyo Puyo; the classic Sega arcade games Virtua Fighter II and Daytona USA; and some of the latest arcade games including a darts machine DartsLive3, and a driving simulator called SLDS-3G.
• Taking part in an AR Stamp Rally (use an Augmented Reality app to collect stamps at the venue and around Akihabara).
• A merchandise area (1F level) for buying SEGA trinkets and toys.

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