The creator of Shenmue, Yu Suzuki, confirmed that his old creations like Out Run & Space Harrier will not appear in the upcoming sequel.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/50894/classic-sega-arcade-games-will-not-be-in-shenmue-3
During an interview with NWR at E3 2019, the acclaimed game designer Yu Suzuki explained that unfortunately his classic arcade games would not be playable in Shenmue 3.
As the head of SEGA's AM2 division, Yu Suzuki designed arcade hits one after another during the 1980s and 1990s. Games like Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA delivered addictive gameplay and bleeding edge visuals. When the original Shenmue launched on the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, it included two playable classics, Hang-On and Space Harrier. Shenmue 2 would continue this trend with the addition of two more games created by Suzuki, Afterburner II and Out Run.
When we asked Suzuki if some of his classic titles like Space Harrier and Out Run would be returning in Shenmue 3, he responded, "I'm sorry we don't have those arcade games, but instead I do have a lot of other games." Upon noting that we've already seen many of the games that will be featured (like the pachinko game Lucky Hit and turtle racing), Suzuki-san told us, "You'll see more."
Shenmue 3 will not be completely devoid of references to classic SEGA arcade games. For example, during the new wood chopping job, an upbeat tune from After Burner II will start playing if you slice multiple pieces of wood in succession. Failing to hit the next log with your axe will instantly stop the arcade music and switch it to something much more calming. Yu Suzuki described these music changes in correspondence to your actions as a feedback mode.
We'll have a full preview of Shenmue 3 in the near future.
Note: Nintendo World Report will continue to mostly focus on Nintendo games. The coverage of Shenmue 3 is a rare exception.
With the popularity of selling retro games as digital downloads it now seems funny that there was a time where games like that would get included as a free unlockable in a new game.To add to this, it’s kind of wild that there was a time when porting old releases to new hardware wasn’t even a consideration and some companies were so reckless with their inventory they lost source code of entire games. Nintendo apparently even lost the Wavebird molds despite including GameCube controller ports on Wii.
Don't the Yakuza games still include Sega arcade games?
With the popularity of selling retro games as digital downloads it now seems funny that there was a time where games like that would get included as a free unlockable in a new game. It was this narrow time frame where the consoles were powerful enough that they could emulate old hardware well enough but the online infrastructure for a Virtual Console didn't exist yet. It's the same time period where tons of arcade compilations got released. Publishers didn't really have an idea of how to make money of their old games so they included them as freebies or bundled them on a disc, usually at a budget price.
With the popularity of selling retro games as digital downloads it now seems funny that there was a time where games like that would get included as a free unlockable in a new game. It was this narrow time frame where the consoles were powerful enough that they could emulate old hardware well enough but the online infrastructure for a Virtual Console didn't exist yet. It's the same time period where tons of arcade compilations got released. Publishers didn't really have an idea of how to make money of their old games so they included them as freebies or bundled them on a disc, usually at a budget price.
It's really funny what Nintendo did during this time. You got Animal Crossing with a dozen NES games as unlockable content to play which was a pretty big deal at the time for that game. Then a few years later Nintendo released these exact NES games as individual GBA games for $20 a piece now along with others from that era. Then just 2 years later you get the Wii with these same games for only $5 a piece on the Virtual Console.
We could literally see in real time Nintendo realizing how popular their classics were and trying to decide the right price and what they could get away with.