The fact that there was a PS2 version of Shenmue running internally somewhere at Sega blows my mind. I strongly believe that Shenmue on the PS2 would have helped the series greatly.
Man, as much as I'm proud of our Dreamcast.. Shenmue on PS2 almost certainly would've been a smash hit, and would've made Shenmue an absolute juggernaut of a franchise!
Honestly, it's not that surprising that Shenmue was considered for the PS2 back in the day. The PS2 was a very popular console and had the best sales. However, it would likely have been different from the Shenmue we know, as the PS2 didn’t have the advantages of the Dreamcast. Yu Suzuki himself mentioned in an interview during the Virtua Fighter 4 era that 'a Shenmue adaptation on PS2 was possible, but sacrifices would have been made due to the PS2's very limited video memory and textures,' which are a major strength of the Dreamcast and a significant weakness of the PS2. So, of course, Shenmue could have been released on the PS2, just like many games originally designed as exclusives for other consoles, but it would have been different from what we know and probably not as good as the original. That said, the reasoning for not releasing Shenmue on the PS2 is a bit odd. Licensing issues, like swapping Coca-Cola or Fanta branding on cans for European releases, have never really been a problem. But it's important to consider that just because it existed or was possible doesn't mean the visual result would have been satisfactory, compared to what we expect from Shenmue. (especially due to the PS2's limitations in video RAM and texture capability Aside from that, a PS2 version of Shenmue, even if it had been different and inferior to the original, could have given more visibility to the Shenmue franchise thanks to the PS2's success over the years. But Shenmue is also about its unique aspect-not just in terms of the gameplay experience, but also the fact that it was exclusively on the Dreamcast. Even the Xbox version of Shenmue 2 isn't very appreciated by the majority of people due to its blur and other issues.
Uh, dude? There are several games on PS2 that beat Shenmue in graphics pretty hard, including open-world games. Yes PS2 didn't have the video memory and texturing of Dreamcast, but it had way better polygon generation and could generate vector-based random terrain like no other console that generation due to its FPU abilities and pixel fillrate. At the very least PS2 Shenmue would've looked on par with Dreamcast outside maybe worst video output, and some worst textures here and there. But polygon models would've been better, framerate would've been higher (not sure that means much for an open world game), lighting would've been much better, and various post-processing visual effects would've been better too, as well as more detailed physics models. Yeah, Dreamcast had a few advantages over PS2 but don't act like PS2 didn't have advantages over Dreamcast, or that Suzuki would've just chosen to ignore using them in a PS2 port of Shenmue. C'mon now.
@@samalton5837 I never suggested that the PS2 had no advantages over the Dreamcast. The two consoles are very different. The Dreamcast excels in textures and texture resolution thanks to its native texture compression and 8 MB of video RAM. The PS2, on the other hand, is not strong in this area but is much better at lighting effects and polygon rendering (although most PS2 games display high polygon counts especially cutscenes, but far les in gameplay ingam ). Regarding the Dreamcast, its texture compression is extremely efficient, allowing it to handle high-quality textures within its 8 MB of video memory (essentially making it feel like it has more than 8 MB). Shenmue is a prime example of a Dreamcast game that makes extensive use of texture compression, video memory, and high-quality textures. You can't expect the PS2, with only 4 MB of video memory and no texture compression, to achieve what the Dreamcast does in Shenmue. I wasn’t questioning the fact that there are PS2 games that are visually more advanced than Shenmue. However, the PS2 had an 8-year lifespan, and even with that, many of its games lacked detailed visuals. There is a significant difference between in-game graphics and real-time cutscenes on the PS2. Only during cutscenes are the polygon calculations very very high-not during in-game sequences. Shenmue, on the other hand, maintains the same level of detail in its cutscenes and in-game sequences-there’s no trickery involved. My previous message emphasized that Shenmue was designed specifically for the Dreamcast, taking advantage of its strengths. A PS2 port is possible, but it wouldn’t be the same Shenmue we know. The game is heavily dependent on textures, texture compression, and video memory-areas where the Dreamcast excels and the PS2 is weak. This doesn’t mean the PS2 doesn’t have advantage and i never said the contrary . However, the topic is shenmue and a ps2 with its strengths, a port of Shenmue wouldn’t deliver the same experience It’s a world where you can enter almost every building, interact with nearly everyone, and where each character has their own daily routine. It’s not a typical open world. Shenmue. At the time, achieving such detail was only possible through textures, and Shenmue is a game built around textures and texture compression, which only the Dreamcast, GameCube, and Xbox supported natively and efficiently. This doesn’t diminish the beauty of many PS2 games like Final Fantasy XII, Metal Gear Solid 3, or God of War, which were advanced in terms of polygons and lighting effects. However, even those games don’t match the level of detail in Shenmue. Even today, in 2024, it’s hard to find a game where you can explore a 70-story building with every floor and every room accessible, as Shenmue 2 offered. I can give you many example how hax shenmue is in term of detail and level of detail we’re talking about a game designed specifically for the Dreamcast and its strengths, it’s only logical that this wouldn’t be where the PS2 performs best.
Overall, the PS2 way way stronger then the Dreamcast. I am sure it could have run Shenmue very well, even if it probably would have taken some effort and adjusments.
@@sadscientisthououinkyouma1867 bad console.🤣🤣 its the most sold console of all time. you're delusional! not having shenmue on ps2 was one of the worst things they could of have done.
@@final_boss1715 It was a bad console objectively speaking, it was inferior in hardware to all of its competition save the Dreamcast, which the Dreamcast had far better software that allowed it to perform and look better than the PS2. Great marketing doesn't magically make something good, if a marketing team could make people buy bags of dog poop, it would not magically make bags of dog poop a good product. Also it is not the most sold console of all time, the Nintendo Switch is, when the Switch was nearing the point of surpassing the PS2 Sony somehow found millions more in sales, if you believe that story you are a tool.
This is insane! I always thought they didn`t want to do Shenmue 1 so they shopped around Shenmue 2 and it landed on Xbox because they wanted to have a little more japanese focused games. Shenmue 1 on PS2 would have been great for the franchise, for sure!
I'd love to play this PS2 version. :) Even if it's inferior version, this needs to be made publicly available. So many cool stuff rotting in these SEGA vaults...
I would have really loved to have the opportunity to play Shenmue on my PlayStation 2 back in the day, I've almost bought a Sega Dreamcast just to play this revolutionary game but changed my mind after realizing it wasn't localized with at least italian subtitles so I couldn't understand its amazing story on my own without using strategy/guide books which I never liked to do expecially with story driven games of this caliber: hearing about this Sega's internal working version of Shenmue for the Sony PlayStation 2 caused me conflicts with my internal timeline as a gamer of the same massive magnitude of when it came to my knowledge that a Konami's internal working version of Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots for the Microsoft Xbox 360 actually existed...😅
@@ShenmueDojoVOD Imagine for a moment that Shenmue was fully localized, dubbing included, in other languages other than english here in europe by Sega just as Konami did for Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation back in 1999... who knows, maybe we'd still have Sega home consoles on the market competing with Sony and Nintendo by now... (...and I would also have a Dreamcast in my game room with the Pal copies Shenmue I and II...) At the time my english language speaking level wasn't even close to the proper one required to enjoy such a game and, like me, other milions of european gamers were in the same boat: do not licalizing Shenmue was, and always will be, the real "point on no return" for both the Dreamcast's and Sega's console market overall presence in my opinion: I truly believe that at least one more milion of Dreamcasts would have been sold easily in each of the following country/languages 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇪🇸 🇳🇱 if Yu Suzuki's masterpiece was fully localized... including mine...
It's disheartening in a way to think about how close they were to releasing it. I wonder what stopped them? It's one of them things really. To think we probably would have finished the story by now is mind-boggling.
It would have been cool to see it on PS2! Would've made getting into the series easier for me, as I bought my Dreamcast so I could play Shenmue after being intrigued by the Shenmue III announcement.
They also say that there was an Xbox version, but it wasn't released likely due to licencing for Timex etc only covering the Dreamcast. They should have just removed these trademarks for an Xbox release. They already removed some things like Coca-Cola in the western version. Shenmue II Xbox version second disc didn't need to be 'Shenmue: The Movie' and could have just been the actual game. Imagine it like the GTA3+Vice City dual pack, but just for Shenmue. Would have been great, and made the Xbox release of Shenmue II more viable.
Wow this is something I'd definitely love to see, in the same way I'd love to see more of the Sega Saturn version, especially knowing that shenmue would have pushed these systems capabilities really hard, & it's so interesting that they were able to get shenmue playable & working well on Saturn & ps2, it's almost like a what could have been feeling it's a bit haunting & mysterious since it was a long time ago, & of course today's consoles have all the power to handle any type of open world game
Remember Ferrari f355 challenge? That was made by AM2, it was made First for dreamcast and then later ported to the ps2, which version do you think looks best? It's pretty close just some colour difference if I remember correctly
Man, Sega was stupid all way around... Why to release it only on Xbox, a new brand that was barely known then, when you got the monster of a brand Playstation already was during those days? I just don´t get it.
The fact that there was a PS2 version of Shenmue running internally somewhere at Sega blows my mind. I strongly believe that Shenmue on the PS2 would have helped the series greatly.
Madness that they actually had this working on a PS2.
@@ShenmueDojoVOD that makes me soooo sad.
@@ShenmueDojoVODI would love to see what it looked like. I wonder how much rework there was on the textures
If it had comeout on ps 2 then the series would have continued to be a success and we would have finished the Shenmue story years ago.
Agreed
That's insane, maybe we'd have a million Shenmue spinoffs by now
Shenmue 179 where Fuku-san finally masters elbow assault.
@@ShenmueDojoVOD I only wanted the one centered around Goro...
Man, as much as I'm proud of our Dreamcast.. Shenmue on PS2 almost certainly would've been a smash hit, and would've made Shenmue an absolute juggernaut of a franchise!
I was a ps2 kid so I never got to play Shenmue when I was younger. I would’ve loved this
I'd have loved to have seen it on PS2. I'd have bought it again.
Strange we didn’t hear anything from inin games today, or have I missed something
Nothing yet
Honestly, it's not that surprising that Shenmue was considered for the PS2 back in the day. The PS2 was a very popular console and had the best sales. However, it would likely have been different from the Shenmue we know, as the PS2 didn’t have the advantages of the Dreamcast. Yu Suzuki himself mentioned in an interview during the Virtua Fighter 4 era that 'a Shenmue adaptation on PS2 was possible, but sacrifices would have been made due to the PS2's very limited video memory and textures,' which are a major strength of the Dreamcast and a significant weakness of the PS2.
So, of course, Shenmue could have been released on the PS2, just like many games originally designed as exclusives for other consoles, but it would have been different from what we know and probably not as good as the original.
That said, the reasoning for not releasing Shenmue on the PS2 is a bit odd. Licensing issues, like swapping Coca-Cola or Fanta branding on cans for European releases, have never really been a problem.
But it's important to consider that just because it existed or was possible doesn't mean the visual result would have been satisfactory, compared to what we expect from Shenmue.
(especially due to the PS2's limitations in video RAM and texture capability
Aside from that, a PS2 version of Shenmue, even if it had been different and inferior to the original, could have given more visibility to the Shenmue franchise thanks to the PS2's success over the years.
But Shenmue is also about its unique aspect-not just in terms of the gameplay experience, but also the fact that it was exclusively on the Dreamcast.
Even the Xbox version of Shenmue 2 isn't very appreciated by the majority of people due to its blur and other issues.
Very well put.
Ridiculous. PS2 is still double the power or triple. ShenMue would look way better in PS2 if they make it to cater to that Emotion Engine.
Uh, dude? There are several games on PS2 that beat Shenmue in graphics pretty hard, including open-world games. Yes PS2 didn't have the video memory and texturing of Dreamcast, but it had way better polygon generation and could generate vector-based random terrain like no other console that generation due to its FPU abilities and pixel fillrate.
At the very least PS2 Shenmue would've looked on par with Dreamcast outside maybe worst video output, and some worst textures here and there. But polygon models would've been better, framerate would've been higher (not sure that means much for an open world game), lighting would've been much better, and various post-processing visual effects would've been better too, as well as more detailed physics models.
Yeah, Dreamcast had a few advantages over PS2 but don't act like PS2 didn't have advantages over Dreamcast, or that Suzuki would've just chosen to ignore using them in a PS2 port of Shenmue. C'mon now.
@@samalton5837
I never suggested that the PS2 had no advantages over the Dreamcast. The two consoles are very different. The Dreamcast excels in textures and texture resolution thanks to its native texture compression and 8 MB of video RAM. The PS2, on the other hand, is not strong in this area but is much better at lighting effects and polygon rendering (although most PS2 games display high polygon counts especially cutscenes, but far les in gameplay ingam ).
Regarding the Dreamcast, its texture compression is extremely efficient, allowing it to handle high-quality textures within its 8 MB of video memory (essentially making it feel like it has more than 8 MB). Shenmue is a prime example of a Dreamcast game that makes extensive use of texture compression, video memory, and high-quality textures. You can't expect the PS2, with only 4 MB of video memory and no texture compression, to achieve what the Dreamcast does in Shenmue.
I wasn’t questioning the fact that there are PS2 games that are visually more advanced than Shenmue. However, the PS2 had an 8-year lifespan, and even with that, many of its games lacked detailed visuals. There is a significant difference between in-game graphics and real-time cutscenes on the PS2. Only during cutscenes are the polygon calculations very very high-not during in-game sequences. Shenmue, on the other hand, maintains the same level of detail in its cutscenes and in-game sequences-there’s no trickery involved.
My previous message emphasized that Shenmue was designed specifically for the Dreamcast, taking advantage of its strengths. A PS2 port is possible, but it wouldn’t be the same Shenmue we know. The game is heavily dependent on textures, texture compression, and video memory-areas where the Dreamcast excels and the PS2 is weak. This doesn’t mean the PS2 doesn’t have advantage and i never said the contrary . However, the topic is shenmue and a ps2 with its strengths, a port of Shenmue wouldn’t deliver the same experience
It’s a world where you can enter almost every building, interact with nearly everyone, and where each character has their own daily routine. It’s not a typical open world.
Shenmue. At the time, achieving such detail was only possible through textures, and Shenmue is a game built around textures and texture compression, which only the Dreamcast, GameCube, and Xbox supported natively and efficiently.
This doesn’t diminish the beauty of many PS2 games like Final Fantasy XII, Metal Gear Solid 3, or God of War, which were advanced in terms of polygons and lighting effects. However, even those games don’t match the level of detail in Shenmue. Even today, in 2024, it’s hard to find a game where you can explore a 70-story building with every floor and every room accessible, as Shenmue 2 offered.
I can give you many example how hax shenmue is in term of detail and level of detail
we’re talking about a game designed specifically for the Dreamcast and its strengths, it’s only logical that this wouldn’t be where the PS2 performs best.
Overall, the PS2 way way stronger then the Dreamcast. I am sure it could have run Shenmue very well, even if it probably would have taken some effort and adjusments.
This is so frustrating--it always made the most sense to port it to the PS2. I'm almost certain the sales would have been to Sega's liking.
The issue is probably that the PS2 was just a bad console, the hardware was terrible and the only real advantage was the large market share it had.
@sadscientisthououinkyouma1867 I agree with this.
@@sadscientisthououinkyouma1867 bad console.🤣🤣 its the most sold console of all time. you're delusional! not having shenmue on ps2 was one of the worst things they could of have done.
@@final_boss1715 It was a bad console objectively speaking, it was inferior in hardware to all of its competition save the Dreamcast, which the Dreamcast had far better software that allowed it to perform and look better than the PS2.
Great marketing doesn't magically make something good, if a marketing team could make people buy bags of dog poop, it would not magically make bags of dog poop a good product.
Also it is not the most sold console of all time, the Nintendo Switch is, when the Switch was nearing the point of surpassing the PS2 Sony somehow found millions more in sales, if you believe that story you are a tool.
Dummy lol
This is insane! I always thought they didn`t want to do Shenmue 1 so they shopped around Shenmue 2 and it landed on Xbox because they wanted to have a little more japanese focused games. Shenmue 1 on PS2 would have been great for the franchise, for sure!
Would be mental!
It would be a mess with bad PS2 alias issues that many PS2 suffered from.
I dunno. AM2 were masters at the time. It could have been better than we all think
If it did come out on the PS2 we would be on Shenmue 9 by now and Yakuza level of spin offs. I bet that would have happened.
We'd be OK with that haha.
I'd love to play this PS2 version. :) Even if it's inferior version, this needs to be made publicly available. So many cool stuff rotting in these SEGA vaults...
I'd be all over it!
I would have really loved to have the opportunity to play Shenmue on my PlayStation 2 back in the day, I've almost bought a Sega Dreamcast just to play this revolutionary game but changed my mind after realizing it wasn't localized with at least italian subtitles so I couldn't understand its amazing story on my own without using strategy/guide books which I never liked to do expecially with story driven games of this caliber: hearing about this Sega's internal working version of Shenmue for the Sony PlayStation 2 caused me conflicts with my internal timeline as a gamer of the same massive magnitude of when it came to my knowledge that a Konami's internal working version of Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots for the Microsoft Xbox 360 actually existed...😅
Had it gone to PS2 I reckon we'd have the series all said and done by now.
@@ShenmueDojoVOD Imagine for a moment that Shenmue was fully localized, dubbing included, in other languages other than english here in europe by Sega just as Konami did for Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation back in 1999... who knows, maybe we'd still have Sega home consoles on the market competing with Sony and Nintendo by now... (...and I would also have a Dreamcast in my game room with the Pal copies Shenmue I and II...)
At the time my english language speaking level wasn't even close to the proper one required to enjoy such a game and, like me, other milions of european gamers were in the same boat: do not licalizing Shenmue was, and always will be, the real "point on no return" for both the Dreamcast's and Sega's console market overall presence in my opinion: I truly believe that at least one more milion of Dreamcasts would have been sold easily in each of the following country/languages 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇪🇸 🇳🇱 if Yu Suzuki's masterpiece was fully localized... including mine...
"This series just can't catch a break." - The fans. Every year.
It's disheartening in a way to think about how close they were to releasing it. I wonder what stopped them? It's one of them things really. To think we probably would have finished the story by now is mind-boggling.
Yeah for sure!
It would have been cool to see it on PS2! Would've made getting into the series easier for me, as I bought my Dreamcast so I could play Shenmue after being intrigued by the Shenmue III announcement.
If it does exist it's a shame will can never see it! Would be pretty cool!
Maybe one day we can
I love shenmue ❤. Always
This was never released on the ps2 yu suzuki said it wouldnt be possible back then.
They also say that there was an Xbox version, but it wasn't released likely due to licencing for Timex etc only covering the Dreamcast. They should have just removed these trademarks for an Xbox release. They already removed some things like Coca-Cola in the western version. Shenmue II Xbox version second disc didn't need to be 'Shenmue: The Movie' and could have just been the actual game. Imagine it like the GTA3+Vice City dual pack, but just for Shenmue. Would have been great, and made the Xbox release of Shenmue II more viable.
Not bringing Shenmue to the ps2 was probably their biggest mistake
A huge one
Wow this is something I'd definitely love to see, in the same way I'd love to see more of the Sega Saturn version, especially knowing that shenmue would have pushed these systems capabilities really hard, & it's so interesting that they were able to get shenmue playable & working well on Saturn & ps2, it's almost like a what could have been feeling it's a bit haunting & mysterious since it was a long time ago, & of course today's consoles have all the power to handle any type of open world game
You and me both!
Remember Ferrari f355 challenge? That was made by AM2, it was made First for dreamcast and then later ported to the ps2, which version do you think looks best? It's pretty close just some colour difference if I remember correctly
It was OK on PS2 IIRC
Wow. This is insane!
Madness
Sega had a strong partnership with Microsoft then. It was not going to happen.
legendary
Good discussion
What a...😮
Man, Sega was stupid all way around... Why to release it only on Xbox, a new brand that was barely known then, when you got the monster of a brand Playstation already was during those days? I just don´t get it.
From this day bye bye
Agreed
@ShenmueDojoVOD from this channel
@@Segahellasconsoles Bye then.