Americans wouldn't give a XXXX for Shenmue 2
Sega cancels US release of Shenmue 2, but still on for Europe
Sega of America's VP of Long Job Titles Charles Bellfield has confirmed rumours that Shenmue 2 won't be released on the Dreamcast in America, although the much anticipated game is already available in Japan and is still due out in Europe next spring. It's a bizarre turn of events, as usually this works the other way round, with games being released in Japan and the USA but never arriving in Europe. Americans will now have to wait for an Xbox version of the game, which will be released in the US some time next autumn. "if the Dreamcast [were] continuing today, we wouldn't be having this conversation", Charles Bellfield told IGN. "But it's not, and the reality is that we need to make the right decision for taking our content into next generation platforms and [getting] that to consumers as quickly as possible." Which doesn't make much sense, because if Sega are still releasing the Dreamcast version of the game in Europe, it must already be getting translated into English for the UK. How hard can it be to turn that into an American version of the game? We would hazard a guess that maybe Microsoft signed it up as an exclusive Xbox title for the USA, but if so why are they letting Sega go ahead and release it on Dreamcast in Europe? Still, we shouldn't complain - it's nice to get one up on the Americans for a change. Related Feature - Shenmue review