God, what has happened to my game? Shenmue was the pride of Sega, weird stretchy face textures and all. It was a flagship game for Sega’s flagship game system. From there the IP slowly crept down in respectability. There was that Xbox release that made me feel kind of icky. More recently, the series creator, Yu Suzuki, made the latest Shenmue game all web-based and frilly. And now there’s talk of an iOS port of Shenmue Town? Only Sonic’s story is more sad!
Suzuki says that his Japanese Yahoo! portal Mobage PC game has always been considered something that could go multiplatform. He told Gamasutra at GDC that smartphones are the next step for his game: “From the start, I’ve been thinking of this as a multiplatform game.” He adds: “So I’m thinking about smartphone strategies right now.”
And then? Crazy talk: “I’m imagining,” he added, “since Apple just announced their AirPlay initiative that allows you to play music and send a single out from your phone to multiple devices, that in the future you’ll be able to beam games out of your phone to play on widescreen TVs in massively multiplayer environments. You could play against other people with your iPhone as your controller.”
Dude! What does this have to do with a nice game of Lucky Hit? How does this crap relate to the Tomato Convenience Store? What about Bob’s Pizza?
Oh, and it’s called Shenmue Town now. Not Shenmue City.
