Intellectual property rights?

[Aya]

I thought Sega no longer has the IP to this game considering that the upcoming Shenmue 3 is to be published by THQ-Nordic. Am i missing something here?

[Redblaze27]

I'm assuming they have limited rights to Shenmue 3, and they still own 1 & 2.

[McShave07]

Sega own Shenmue outright. It's more like they're leasing out the rights to the third game to Nordic.

[Redblaze27]

Publicado originalmente por McShave07:

Sega own Shenmue outright. It's more like they're leasing out the rights to the third game to Nordic.

This is also true.

Like, they let the series creator make a new one, if he managed to independantly get his own funding (hence the Kickstarter) & handle all the heavy lifting.

[Marcos]

Yu explained it to Kotaku back when Shenmue 3 was being Kickstarted: https://kotaku.com/getting-the-rights-to-shenmue-was-easier-than-you-d-thi-1712037863

“My company YSnet, we officially approached Sega a while ago, asking for the approval for the licenses, I was at Sega when Shenmue was made, as you may know, and they felt safe giving me the license to make the next one. They’re the reason why I was even able to make Shenmue.”

"When asked if Sega would be getting any percentage of profits from the eventual release of Shenmue III, Suzuki said that he couldn’t talk about the details of the deal he struck with Sega."

Basically, YSNet has the approval to do Shenmue 3 while SEGA still holds the rights to the property.