A Sega Europe executive says that the re-releases of Shenmue I & II coming to PC this year have been discussed internally for several years, pre-dating the company’s Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue III.
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John Clark, Sega Europe’s executive vice president of publishing, told IGN that the success of their Shenmue III announcement helped convince top company executives that there was a demand in the West for the Shenmue series.
But what got the ball rolling initially, Clark says, was the 2014 PC release of Valkyria Chronicles. Since then, PC ports of Bayonetta and Vanquish have further helped prove that Western PC gamers are eager to play Japanese IP.
Clark told IGN that Sega Europe have a wishlist of company titles they’d like to bring to the PC.
“We have a wishlist [for most-wanted re-releases], and one of the first games that we brought out [from that list] was Valkyria Chronicles,” he said. “That came out on PC, and the appetite for that game on PC led to it coming out on console as well, and now we see that the franchise is becoming really healthy.”
“There are more games on the list, there are more announcements to be made, and we’re just happy that we can bring out Shenmue I & II now,” he went on.
Now that the ball is rolling, it’ll be exciting to see what else Sega bring out of their vault.