The Shenmue 3 Kickstarter, announced at Sony’s E3 press conference a couple of days ago, will probably go down as a historic one- it met its entire funding goal in less than a full day, and it continues to accumulate money at an alarming rate. As of right now, backers have already pledged $3 million to the promise and allure of Shenmue 3- which is an impressive figure by all counts, but made even more impressive when the average donation amount per backer is considered.
Specifically, it appears that $40,000 of that amount has come from just four people four people who pledged for Shenmue 3 at the $10,000 rewards tier. The $10,000 tier includes all the contents of the $500 tier, in addition to your name being listed as a special sponsor in the credits, a thank you video from Yu Suzuki himself, and, perhaps most of all, Ryo’s jacket worn by Masaya Matsukaze for all of the Shenmue press events 14 years ago. Basically, if you are a Shenmue fan, this tier is it.
There are other $10,000 reward tiers too- these include an invitation to a dinner party with Yu Suzuki in Japan, as well as the original Japanese script for Shenmue and Shenmue 2. Overall, it seems that after years of asking for it, fans are putting their money where their mouths are.
Shenmue 3 will release on PS4 and PC in 2017.