Shenmue Title In Development For Yahoo! Mobage Service

Shenmue City is to be the first new entry in Yu Suzuki's divisive series for eight years. Sega revealed the game's development today in Japan alongside the official launch of Yahoo! Japan and DeNA's new Yahoo! Mobage service, a PC-based social games service for Japan. In a joint press release, Yahoo! Japan and DeNA said that Shenmue City is set for release this Winter for the platform. Shenmue, released for Sega' Dreamcast console in 1999, was originally intended to be the first title in a trilogy, but only two games were released before Sega canned the series, much to the chagrin of its vociferous fans. Today's press release refers to Shenmue City as the third entry to the series, but it seems unlikely that the game represents the third installment that creator Yu Suzuki had planned for consoles. Yahoo! Mobage has been in beta testing since September 21, officially launching today. The new Shenmue title will feature alongside titles One Million Person Ambition of Nobunaga from Tecmo Koei and Persona Social from Atlus on the new service. Yahoo! Mobage's creators claim that there are over 100 new titles planned, including games from Electronic Arts' Playfish brand.