Sony won't let them and that's final.

The only, absolutely only way to get Kickstarter developers to a DRM free version is to make the success of the crowd funding campaign dependent on it. If the developer doesn't get the impression that the public would never back a game that's distributed via AAA publishers exclusively, if he never gets taught Kickstarter etiquette by Kickstarter backers, he will behave like just another Sony/Valve dependie AAA dev, because that's what success means to him.

Shenmue3 is a successful Kickstarter already, so the road to arrogance and catering to the monopolies has been paved. There's no kind of pressure left for the GOG crowd to apply.

yeah, I doubdt they'll ever think about drm-free. even if they will be spammed..
so no luck here

yeah Shenmue 2 on xbox was a remake. it was also dubbed unlike the pal Shenmue 2 which was subtitled. actually the pal Shenmue 2 was sold at gamestops in the u.s. that's where I got mine. I think stores were limited to one copy depending on how they sold.

from the recent kickstarter update sony is POSSIBLY funding more than the marketing and ps4 version. but they can't disclose how much on what aspect of the game but he says that *all* kickstarter money will be going for development of the game. it's likely that some of sony's money will be used to port to the ps4. again, it's all speculation since they won't give all the little details but this last one is kind of obvious.

aw don't say that. you never know. never say never you know...unless you're saying never say never then you can say never I guess.

haven't we seen other kickstarter games go drm free because of backer demand? I'm not sure since I don't back many kickstarter projects.

that's why I never bothered with the xbox version when it came out. although I like the dubbing in Shenmue I heard that loading and slowdown (although dc Shenmue 2 had plenty of slowdown) were worse on xbox. I figured why buy an inferior version of the game? but I did recently pick up the xbox version just to have the Shenmue 1 movie with it. i found a decent deal. not a great deal since the prices of these games have tripled with Shenmue3's announcement.

i couldn't get rid of my pal Shenmue 2. now that I'm looking at prices on ebay I'm glad i kept it sheesh...worse than xbox version.

Exactly. The fact is that he asked for 2mill and he's getting close to 4mill. They already know there's interest. The fans are getting a bit annoyed that they can't get their 'open world game' that Yu envisioned and they are doing one of two things. Harassing others to pledge more or spamming everywhere they can to get pledges period. They don't care about what people want. They're busy saying things like "we waited fourteen years for this" and saying that people who don't contribute aren't really fans. Concerns of DRM have been brought up in Reddit and they couldn't careless. Kickstarter is trying to figure out how to raise more money and that's it. I'm sure I'm not one of the only ones withholding money for my own reasons despite being willing to pledge but instead of trying to rally people like me in and get us all to stand for the cause as we donate they'd rather try to guilt people into pledging and tell them to deal with what they have to offer because we've wanted this game so long that we should basically fund it no matter what.

So this DRM thing? We can try all we want but I'm not holding my breath. I may or may not get a PS4 but with the whole 'backwards-compatible' debacle and XBox One finally catering to people I have a lot to think about. IMHO PS4 just doesn't have much to offer yet. This isn't a slam on PS4 because none of the consoles do. I'm fine with my 3DS and Mac. So seeing as how I'm on Mac my only hope is that later on down the road the series finds its way here to GOG or someone ports it.

I feel like they're too busy harping on Yu's 'open world' vision to help anyone. They'll outright admit the stretch goals suck but they want to fund them anyway if only to realize his vision. They aren't getting what they want and many fans are unhappy but hey, it's cool, Yu knows what he's doing so let's throw money at him. Others just seem to want to be a part of history in funding this. I don't think either of them are right at all. One should pledge for something they want and something they can use not a game that they can't enjoy for whichever reason.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=169938674&postcount=252
Check it out, this print is pretty nice. They're selling it to fund the game. Now I might just consider buying this.

Here is a summary of the latest interview with Yu Suzuki, at least they noticed that DRM free is wanted.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=170021489&postcount=738

Now that interview was a good one.

Q: "Will PayPal be an option to help fund Shenmue 3?"

A: "No definite answer, but we're looking into it."

Q: "Is Shenmue 3 going to be DRM free on PC?"

A: "We are now looking into it, but it's not something I alone can decide on. I'm talking to other parties to decide if that's possible... we're looking into it."

Q: "Shenmue 1/Shenmue II HD remaster: are we gonna see it?"

A: "I personally want to see them so that the fans can enjoy Shenmue 3 more. However the property rights belong to SEGA, so I'm not in a position to comment on it. But I want it, so I will talk to SEGA if that's possible."

This is pretty close to almost all I wanted to hear. He's aware that people want it and he's working on it. The rewards thing is nice to hear too. I don't have 1-5k but that's awesome that they have a replica of Ryo's watch in there. Question, wasn't Ryo's watch something like a dirt cheap Timex or something? It never looked like much of anything special. Even so many people would love to own it so I'm glad to see it offered as a possibility to one lucky person. Things are looking up for this Kickstarter. Now if only we can get it on other consoles.

But say, if they do it DRM free that makes it that much easier to port right? So I can just buy the PC version and use Wine or something.

As for Sony why did people assume they were getting some of the money? I never thought that. The minute they were brought into this I assumed that the main source of funding was the Kickstarter and Sony would pick up the slack. Instead it seems that Sony is picking up the marketing end which isn't bad either. I'm totally fine with that.

And all 4 bosses will be part of Shenmue III :)

What is Shenmue? Why are people getting excited for it? The trailer looked like a vertical slice with strange a strange ''yeah'' repeating. Is it one of those Heavy Rain-like things?

For me the first two parts (on the Sega Dreamcast) are the best pieces of entertainment ever made. It is an 3rd person adventure life simulation with martial arts fighting. It was the first game that introduced QTE and an believeable open world. Until a few years ago it was the most expensive game ever made. The story is wonderful and it is a very emotional experience and the 15 years waiting was painful :)

They guy that runs the Kickstarter is Yu Suzuki, the inventor of the series. Besides that he is the inventor of games like Virtua Fighter, Outrun and many other legendary Sega Arcade games. Before Sega went out of hardware business in 2001 he was Sega's equivilant of Nintento's Miyamoto.

The quality of the campaign, the trailer, the artworks are not good so far but I have no doubt that the game will be another mastepiece.

Edit: Here is great video that gives you an impression of this series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=359&v=K_zB-R-Dbw8

I think this confirms my suspictions that the agreement with Sony has something to say about drm. Ahh well, it's their loss if they cant provide a drm free pc game.

That's my feeling on the matter as well. I've heard that rumor and it makes sense but I can't understand why they'd ink such a deal. Maybe Yu was desperate and that's why but now he's probably kicking himself. It stands to reason that having it only on one console is missing out on potential profits and since Sony is only backing them with promotion it looks like he's getting the short end of the stick.

Let's hope the PC version doesn't suck like Arkham Knight or we can expect Shenmue III to fail no matter how good it is.

Oh, here's a video of the Twitch Q&A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZm-HzCVzL4

They weren't kidding when they said the dude in the red messed up the interview. My gosh he's horrible!

It's obvious why (at least) two parties are mentioned here. Publisher (Sony) and rights holder (Sega) have their say in the matter. We've talked about Sony before... as to Sega...

Releases on Steam (incl. DLC etc): 295
Releases on GOG: 0

Yeah... have that guy "ask" those other parties... :(

Thanks! Good to see old masters returning! Hopefully, it comes out on PC as well :D