Win 1 Of 3 Ryo Hazuki Figurines!

– May 3, 2010 11:19 pmPosted in: Competitions

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good… so the fact that I’ve managed to get my paws on some extra Ryo Hazuki/All-Stars Racing figurines means that I can do a competition for them here on Sonic Wrecks. (That kinda means that saif wind will blow you g… hmm, okay lets stop with that analogy.) Yes indeed, if you wanted one of those figures nows your chance. They may look a bit rough and ready, but hey, have you seen any Shenmue merchandise recently? Demand for these are off-the-hook, only 1000 of these – or should I say 999 as one I found to be completely annihilated – exist so better act fast!

THE TASK

I’m going to bring a bit of a dash of irony to this one, now as you know SEGA fans want Shenmue III – you know it, I know it, everyone knows it. However being part of the SEGA community team I know it slightly more than others owing to the fact the fans do badger SEGA somewhat via the social media. Of course as this is the community team who are already passing the message along (repeatedly) and can really do no more all its really serving to do is bury any other message that is trying to be conveyed and making the team a bit fed up of getting pestered about it all the time. So what to do?

Well thats where the irony comes in folks! I want you to come up with the best excuse you can for why Shenmue III has not come to pass, now I’m not looking for a serious reason naturally – I don’t want to hear about money or finance or anything like that. But a completely ridiculous (yet somehow inexplicably plausible) excuse that theoretically could reduce the amount of messages I get bombarded with. Seriously go nuts!

Example: “The reason why we’ve not had any Shenmue III is because Yu Suzuki became locked in a battle of wits as the Large Hadron Collider created a quantum singularity which pulled him into another dimension ruled by giant lizards.”

“WHAT CAN I WIN, AAUK?”

The best three excuses will each win a limited edition Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Ryo Hazuki figure.

HOW TO ENTER

Simply leave your Shenmue III excuse in a comment which you can write at the bottom of this page if you’re reading the article seperately or simply click on comments at the top of the post. Please note: Comments are moderated so will not appear immediately, this does not mean your entry has not been recieved.

THE RULES

Entries must be received before 12:00 UK Time on May 30th. Any comment received afterwards will not be counted.
The contest is open Worldwide, yes even Puerto Rico and Quebec.
One entry per person.
Entrants must include their email address in the required comment field. (NB: You’ve GOT to do this for the comment to even be allowed, so don’t panic if you think you forgot it.)
Going “why don’t SEGA just make Shenmue III” isn’t an excuse, its spam and won’t be counted.
All decisions are final.
Abusive comments will not be approved and your entry will be invalidated. Sonic Wrecks retains the right to refuse any entry.
Winners will be individually contacted by email and asked to supply name and address for postage, refusal to supply or failure to reply to the email will result in the prize not being sent.

Good luck!

Tags: Competitions, Merchandise, Shenmue, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

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24 Comments

superneku

Posted May 4, 2010 at 12:02 AM

The reason Shenmue III was not created was because everyone was too mesmerised by the sucktastic Shadow The Hedgehog, which managed to cause a rift in the space time continuum, thus making everyone on earth forget EVERYTHING about the Shenmue series. There are some surviors of this epidemic, but they are cursed by being forced against their will to spam Sega for the 3rd game every 5 seconds.
DarkWindPT

Posted May 4, 2010 at 12:04 AM

Heh, that’s easy. I know why SEGA isn’t making Shenmue III. Ryo stole Naoyuki’s bike, betrayed his trust and has been locked with Computer room-finding crocodiles and foxes with wrenches. He did not get away.
Cyberlink420

Posted May 4, 2010 at 1:02 AM

That’s the thing, though: Shenmue III is done, and has been done for years. However Yu Suzuki harbors a personal grudge against the airline industry for misplacing his luggage, and insists that copies of the game be shipped out via boat. Unfortunately, he’s still looking for sailors…
Highwater Trousers

Posted May 4, 2010 at 1:11 AM

There has not been a Shenmue III due to a series of events that started when Yu Suzuki’s new genre F.R.E.E. was misinterpreted by numerous people. Distributors would ask what kind of game the original Shenmue was and Suzuki would respond with the answer “It’s F.R.E.E.” After millions of copies were given out for free, the mistake was corrected, but the damage had been done. It was not the damage to the sales that hurt the game, but the fact that Suzuki had been maimed during one of the free give-aways of the game (One of the distributors decided to give away copies of the game by dropping them off the top of the Tokyo Tower, where Suzuki had been standing under at the time drinking sake and eating microwave burritos.) It took much coaxing and therapy to get Suzuki to even consider a Shenmue II and upon release, Suzuki changed the game’s classification to plain old “adventure game” to avoid any confusion. Still caught in a phase of shock, Suzuki continued to change the series. He actually decided that there would not be a Shenmue III, but would instead continue the story in a series of Kabuki theater shows. Casting is still in progress.
T.A Black

Posted May 4, 2010 at 9:22 AM

Well then – sounds like a good competition idea, so here’s my suggestion:

SEGA wanted to use the famous song “He Tried To Kill Me With A Forklift” for Shenmue III, to go along with some more Forklift action in the game. However, they were threatened with legal action from Gizmonic Institute about the use of it (apparently it was copyright someone in the company called Mike or Joel – they weren’t very clear).

SEGA were given a choice: do not use the song at all, or they can use the song, but they were forced to watch “Manos The Hands of Fate” with “Monster A Go Go” and “The Killer Shrews”.

Seeing as the entire game rested on that one song, along with the fact that SEGA didn’t want to subject anyone in their company with those films, they decided to cancel the entire Shenmue III project for safety reasons.

Or at least until someone creates some very good puppet-like robots for them.
Miqualke

Posted May 4, 2010 at 2:15 PM

The only reason why shenmue 3 was not created is because there is only Sega hardware that could handle such a great game ! So the DreamCast2 has to come first but since Mario and Sonic are no longer enemies, Peach seduced Knuckles who gives her the blueprints. Nintendo is still trying to decript the title project: “Sega will do what Nintendo Wiin’t !”
DiGi Valentine

Posted May 4, 2010 at 3:06 PM

The reason why Shenmue 3 has not happened is because Fuku-san has gone missing after being beaten up for the 285th time. Ine-san ate the kitten in the box. Goro is in a coma after yelling “YOOO BROOO!!” at an oncoming forklift. Nozomi drank water from Raccoon City and has become NoZombi, biting Master Chens face off. All this has made Ryo Hazuki become depressed and he has locked himself in the toilet of the Hazuki Residence, asking himself if he ‘should git anotha’.

Yu Suzuki is currently face palming himself at how the series slipped from his hands.
Eggman123

Posted May 4, 2010 at 7:26 PM

Shenmue 3 never happened because of Sonic team.
Shenmue 3 should have been released in 2006, but Sonic team couldn’t see a Sega game that’s better than theirs.
So instead of working on they own game,Sonic team sabotaged Shenmue 3.Out of protest left Yuji Naka Sonic team, Shenmue 3 was so twisted that it got cancelled and Sonic team released their most unfinished product yet. The revenge of the developers was cruel.
They implented a Werehog and even a sword in future Sonic games so they, too can’t work on their own game since then.

That or Froggy ate the first prototype.
Sinister Swiss

Posted May 4, 2010 at 8:19 PM

SEGA’s reason for not making Shenmue III is nothing more than a simple licensing issue.
Upon the release of the very first Shenmue, SEGA was in a 6 year long court case with an unamed box-manufacturing company. The company in question had accused SEGA of using a shade of brown that the company had especialy created as a trademark in the game’s forklifting sections.
After much dispute, the final agreement was to either replace all of the forklift sections in Shenmue III (the case was only opened after Shenmue II had been completed, so it was not affected) with Ryo forklifting obese people from their seats in a local McDonald’s restuarant, or pay out an unimaginable amount of money to the company in order to gain ownership of their shade of brown to use on the in-game boxes. Since the colour of the boxes was the main reason people bought the game, Shenmue III was unfortunately cancelled until further notice.
Couldn’t SEGA have just chosen a different shade to use you ask? No, as it’s Japanese custom to have a consistent shade of every colour in every sequel/remake.
Ein_Eagle_Vanato

Posted May 4, 2010 at 9:37 PM

The Reason Shenmue III was never released is because when Sonic heroes, Shadow The Hedgehog and SONIC-06 were being made, Ryo sabotage the games with either with poor gameplay, graphics, storyline, or in SONIC-06 case, all three. His Reason for this was that Sonic was stealing the limelight, and Shadow’s appearance in the series with a cooler bike than his forklift.
As punishment for possibly ruining what SEGA says was the best thing EVER to happen to them, Ryo now has to clean the locker room for the Mario Team whenever they come round and play against the Sonic Team at the olympic games.
Adamis Fox

Posted May 5, 2010 at 11:25 AM

The reason Shenmue III wasn’t released? It’s quite simple actually. In fact, there was one, only ONE finished version of the game on discs, in a game box. It was THE only final build that was made. Once it was burnt on CD, an unnamed employee took it home for testing purpose. On his way, he stopped in a bar, drinking a good beer with a few friends he met there. The poor man drank a bit too much and couldn’t really handle alcohol. When his friends took him home, they didn’t see that special game he had with him, laying on the chair that was next to him. A man was in that bar. Let’s call him by his nickname “IHASSHENMUETHREE001″ to protect his privacy. That guy saw the game, almost fainted but stole it and got home.
After that incident, Sega’s employee came back to the office, and realised he lost that precious build ! He tried to burn a new version of the game but as soon as he started, the computer got infected by a virus called “YOUWONTWINTHISTIMESEGA” sent by a certain Shigeru M. …that virus destroyed all materials made for Shenmue III. Everything. Once the entire team was told about it, they just didn’t want to start all over and went to a pub to discuss their next project. Little did they know that they’d start fighting (well, alcohol…) and the team disbanded forever.
As for the thief, he finished the game and tried to talk about it on the internet. The thing is, nobody believes him because the game wasn’t announced officially. people in the streets recognised him and threw stones at him for being ” a dirty liar, playing with fan’s feeling”. One of them, dressed as a teenage sorcerer, tried to kill him, shouting “AVADA KEDAVRA” and throwing some wood sticks at the poor guy. Now that guy moved to Iceland, in a lovely house next to a volcan named Eyjafjallajokull . Nobody has seen him recently.
Joe4evr

Posted May 6, 2010 at 1:42 PM

Ah, I’ll take a shot at it as well.

The reason there’s no Shenmue III is because SEGA of Japan is far too busy with the paperwork of publishing merchandise of new anime that subsequently, the papers for Shenmue have drifted somewhere to the bottom of the pile, completely forgotten about, accompanied by the papers that document how to make a Sonic game that is absolutely perfect in every way.
sonicyoda

Posted May 6, 2010 at 4:22 PM

The reason why Shenmue III hasn’t come out yet is obvious; Yu Suzuki has been selling his body to gather the $70 million he will need to produce the game himself. SEGA don’t trust that man with their money anymore.
no1phil

Posted May 7, 2010 at 3:24 AM

Ok so here goes the SEGA statement of the year as to why Shenmue III can not and will not be made.

“Shenmue III can not be made due to the fact that after all the royalty bonuses and finacial gain by Yu Suzuki after the first 2 games in the series. He retired from SEGA and anybody still working at SEGA under his name is an alien imposter from Space Channel 5. He is also now doing his first love with Ryo which is working in the biggest Fork Lift comapny in japan driving fork lifts all day and thats why there was originally a mini game of sorts in shenmue. In his spare time he is either taking to the skies in his newly bought After Burner Jet, taking the latest Farrari on a test drive over various cities or working out in his state of the art cosmic smash centre.”
Gavvie

Posted May 8, 2010 at 7:23 PM

The reason Shenmue III hasn’t been made yet is because Ryo Hazuki is still spending his days running around Asia asking people about “that day”. He hasn’t figured in the fact that he’s been doing this for the past 5 years and he’s now in northern China, where nobody knows what the hell he’s on about.

Anyway, we believe that filling ten 3DS cartridges (cos Shenmue III would be coming out on the Nintendo 3DS, as it’s what you’d want to see it on, right?) just for Ryo to ask clueless people the same question is a complete waste of time, resources, and 3DS cartridges.

That, and we can’t decide what language Ryo should speak this time. We’re thinking Latin.
tigaruk

Posted May 10, 2010 at 10:57 AM

For Yu Suzuki, Shenmue was his life. To make such an awesome game he had to live it. Much like actors take on jobs related to their roles in films, Yu Suzuki lived the life of Ryo.

He spent his days wandering around in the rain. Collecting capsule toys, playing football with little kids and asking for sailors. Over time Yu Suzuki became so involved in this fake life that he was starting to believe he was Ryo. He’d go down the bar every night to play pool (badly), dodging the drunken business men and knocking on peoples doors. He’d pass a flower shop where he’d call the assistant Nazomi, even though she corrected him ever time he’d still call her Nazomi.

He started getting in with a bad crowd. Kicking over the cans at Toms hot dog stall and eventually going into dodgy bars and causing fights. He thought he was invincible. He was Ryo and was an expert in karate. Except he wasn’t. Every night he’d come home batter and bruised but always believing he won the fights. Yu Suzuki was never the same again and the reason he can’t be found working at sega? He’s set up a small stall behind the offices of sega where he asks people all day long if they want to play Lucky Hit.

That’s why you will never see a Shenmue 3. Yu Suzuki lived the life to create these games and without his mind there can never be a third.
sonicano18

Posted May 10, 2010 at 3:22 PM

The reason why Shenmue III has not been made is simple, Yu Suzuki has been working so hard on re-formatting yet another copy of the wonderful sonic the hedgehog (Mega Drive Verson) for yet another Mobile phone/Handle Held Games console and simply ran out of hard drive space to even start making Shenmue III. The press Stated that with the speed that New Mobile phones/Games console are released. Yu Suzuki is destined never to be free of Dr robotnic and his grip over south Island. (de dumms)
SonikkuForever

Posted May 12, 2010 at 9:57 PM

Shadow was looking for a thrill, so he used Chaos Control to teleport into Ryo’s world. When he got there, he snuck up behind Ryo and roundhouse-kicked him in the back of the head. While Ryo was unconscious, Shadow stole his forklift and is currently joyriding in Green Hill Zone. With the forklift gone, there can be no more Shenmues.
RGX

Posted May 13, 2010 at 11:42 PM

The reason why Shenmue 3 has not been released is because we lost, correction, misplaced the dragon mirror. One of our guys at SEGA tried to be a smart guy and leave it in a fun-house with mirrors as a joke to see if we could find it. Well, we couldn’t…

Nice job, Steve! No seriously, where is that mirror? I checked that whole fun-house like 7 times… It has been 4 years already, no more hints. Tell us where it is already!

I’m sorry everyone, Shenmue 3 will be delayed for another 7 years or until we find the darn thing. Once again, nice job Steve!
Crazyreyn

Posted May 15, 2010 at 8:46 PM

The reason why Shenmue 3 has not been released is because Shenmue was actually based on a true story. The sailors, the kitten, the woman with a mole on her face, all of it. Even the magical and mystical bit at the end of the second game. It was this ending that led to the series’ downfall: although that part was supposed to be taken out in order to keep valuable Guilin secrets hidden, some dozy staff member left it in which caused Sega to halt the project in fear of future leaks of ancient secrets. That staff member has been ‘missing’ ever since.
Wick

Posted May 17, 2010 at 2:15 AM

There’s been no Shenmue III because Amy Rose has been charming the SEGA employees to make more Sonic games instead!
Retrix

Posted May 24, 2010 at 3:52 PM

Although hailed for features such as its exquisite graphics, detailed story and free playing style, Shenmue was of course most revered for its authentic reflection of the period and location. It is without doubt that no release of Shenmue III would be acceptable without a return of the Magic Weather feature, allowing the game’s weather to replicate the real-life conditions observed in 1987, in the towns of mainland China where Shenmue III is set.

Sega approached the China Meteorological Administration, offering a deal in an attempt to obtain the historical weather data. Unfortunately, the government-run body objected to the data’s proposed use in a game which features a Chinese antagonist, and suggests that China has or has had a mafia. The Shenmue series would have had to be revised from the very beginning, without featuring any Chinese villains. Yu Suzuki was understandably not prepared to depart from the script he had worked on for so long, so the negotiations failed, causing Shenmue III and all subsequent titles to be shelved.
GordoWP

Posted May 25, 2010 at 3:47 PM

It all started when we started working on the second title.

The entire team travelled from Japan to Hong Kong to shoot on location. It was a prolonged stay abroad for a group of about thirty people. So it was definitely going to be costly. The first title did not make back the money spent on it, so we knew there were going to be some cuts.

I should have known how bad it was going to be when I found out I was the only one travelling by boat. We were supposed to record some scenes on deck, instead I met with the shooting team later in Aberdeen. The director wanted to start filming outdoor scenes that very morning, despite the exhaustion from the trip. While we were doing some scenes, I got my bag stolen by a young boy, and even though I managed to recover it, my money was gone. Even worse, I found they had been filming the entire incident, without lending a hand.

The director, Suzuki-san, approached me directly. With a stern face, he apologized saying that they needed all the footage they could get. The shooting team had barely any money and it was all going into the rented equipment. He said that every single person was paying for food and other expenses out of their own pockets. However, the owner of the Come Over Guest House had agreed to give rooms to all of us, and that the studio could pay when we were done shooting. At least I had someplace to spend the night. That was the only thing that kept me from giving up on this.

The next day I was made to load crates at the harbor while on camera. I was paired up with a friendly but not very bright man, who had never seen a camera in his life and excitedly repeated his quotes up to four times each. It was exhausting. Had these people never heard of forklifts? I got paid, but decided I’d rather get my food money from arm wrestling.

About two weeks later, we were done shooting the last scenes in Wan Chai. We spent far too many days filming nothing but chawan signs at various cafés around the area and we were behind schedule for sure. As the entire team was packing to leave for Kowloon, I asked Suzuki-san if the running tab at the guest house had been paid. His expression darkened with guilty and worry. He called me apart and told me the truth – He had not received any further funding from SEGA. The tab at the Come Over Guest House was about 18240$. We might not have enough to settle at the new location and we definitely had not enough to pay the here. Then finished by saying that whomever was left would have to pay the owner and that for the good of the project I should hurry. But when we realized, we were the last two people at the guest house…

I let him go, and I stayed behind trying to earn money. About a month later, I received a letter from Suzuki-san himself. This letter was both a formal apology and a declaration of success despite odds. As you could figure out by now, the man you see in the Kowloon and Guilin chapters of Shenmue II is actually not me. It’s a Kowloon local that agreed to take on my role without asking for pay. Suzuki-san was relieved that he had managed to finish shooting with just enough money to get himself rescued out of the “chinese woodlands,” those were his words. I never heard if he made it back to Japan safely or what happened to the rest of the team. SEGA themselves never contacted me again. I am aware Shenmue II didn’t sell enough to recoup the losses so it’s not surprising.

If you’re wondering what happened to me – Time passes for everyone. I found out my complete collection of SEGA themed capsule toys were worth a small fortune on eBay. I paid the debt and had more than enough for a special trip to Canada. Even thought I am now a married man and father of two, I would like to see an end to the story of Shenmue, even if I am no longer cast as myself. Perhaps in a flashback scene, as I am the living image of my father, after all.

-R. Hazuki, age 41.
Sonicmark

Posted May 30, 2010 at 8:33 PM

Steve Lycett has it in his bedside drawer.