We know that Shenmue is a property of Sega but until now, the only thing we had been told was that they delivered the assets to Ys Net for Shenmue 3 and that was it. However, it looks like they are doing way more than just that.
Hideki Okamura, who was the President and COO of Sega until recently was asked about the nature of collaborations between them and the developers of the upcoming Shenmue title. In his reply, Okamura said:
Shenmue is of course an important IP, not only to Sega, but also to the many games it has influenced. It was the first of its kind in the go anywhere, do anything open world style games. On top of that Mr. Suzuki had a very strong desire to make Shenmue 3. Of course Sega is interacting with Mr. Suzuki even now. We will continue supporting him concerning Shenmue 3 as well.
Do keep in mind that this is an online translation of the actual interview.
Anyhow, from the reply given by Okamura it appears that Sega is continuously helping out Shenmue 3 developers in making the game and that goes beyond just providing them with the assets and so on.
The last time we talked about Shenmue 3 was when Ys Net revealed they had reached the Map Testing stage now.
