Rumours are circulating that Dreamcast classics Shenmue and Shenmue 2 will soon be making an appearance on everyone's favourite arm wiggling fun box, the Nintendo Wii. After Nights, House of The Dead and various other ports, Sega are now no doubt aiming to try and recoup some of the massive losses that Shenmue incurred on its first release. And I do mean MASSIVE. Eight years ago, its production costs ran to $70,000,000 US. That's seventy MILLION dollars. The joke back then was that every Dreamcast owner in the world would have to buy the game twice for it to break even. They didn't, and the rest is history.

I think the main problem with Shenmue, aside from the astronomic cost, is the simple fact that nothing really happens in it. You wander around, play old Sega games in the arcade, collect small plastic toys and either let a kitten live or die. It's hardly a high octane thrill ride. Even the fighting is just pressing a button.

If the games do come to Wii, expect Sega fanboys to spend a long time on a lot of forums telling you how amazing the game is and how it changed the face of videogaming forever. Deep down they know the truth: the only thing Shenmue changed was Sega's status as console makers. If I wanted a job driving forklifts around the docks, I'd just go to the docks and get a job driving forklifts.

Source mywii.com