Yu Suzuki leaving SEGA

PALGN News | The Shenmue dream takes another blow.

There comes a time for legends to move on, and that time has arrived for Yu Suzuki. Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, the industry veteran has indicated that he will be leaving his current position at SEGA this year, staying on only as an advisor.

Yu Suzuki is a name that long time gamers will be very familiar with. Having worked at SEGA since 1983, the programmer went on to direct and produce such classic franchises as Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter, and was the driving force behind the widely praised cult franchise Shenmue.

Establishing a secondary company YS Net in 2008, the studio is currently working on Shenmue City the Yahoo! Mobage service in Japan. Yu Suzuki will continue to work at YS Net regardless of his stance with SEGA.

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8 Comments

Jahanzeb

1 year ago

I'm not expecting a Shenmue 3 but surely it wouldnt cost as much to novelise the story, or maybe even a manga/anime?

I just want the story more than anything.

In any case, a big thank you to Mr. Suzuki. He and Naka pretty much embodied everything Sega stood for.

renegadesx

1 year ago

I wonder if Suzuki would stay if Sega said he could do Shenmue III? If he's gone I have no doubt that if Sega decided to make the game after all they would f**k it up no doubt... in that case like Duke Nukem Forever maybe it would be better off never seeing the light of day.

Maybe after a decade of waiting it is finally time to let the dream die

Jahanzeb wrote

He and Naka pretty much embodied everything Sega stood for.

Well, what they used to stand for. Now they stand for bad licensed titles and terrible at marketing what good games they get to publish (like for Platinum Games)

Sega still has small glimmers of hope:

1) Virtua Fighter 5 was by far the best 3D fighting game this generation (maybe not if you're a button masher

)

2) Sega seem to be slowly learning that Dimps is better at making Sonic games than... well.. Sonic Team. Sonic 4 being done in episodes is a good move because it mean we don't have to wait another 16 years for another release.

3) Despite it was never going to attract a wide audience, I thought the Wii NiGHTS title was pretty good. Like Sonic 4 I was expecting nothing but pure fan service and thats what I got.

4) House of the Dead: Overkill... said enough.

Terrestrial_Hominid

1 year ago

Pagan's Mind

1 year ago

Does SEGA own the Shenmue series? There may still be hope.

renegadesx

1 year ago

Yes Sega own it but as we all learned from Duke, is it really the best thing if it still comes out?

Pagan's Mind

1 year ago

Unlike DNF it hasn't even been in development for this past 11 years so it'll be a completely new project. Less likely to be a mess than DNF seems to have turned out to be.