UPDATE: apparently, the whole thing was a hoax and Sega has denied any current development of Shenmue 3 on next-gen consoles.

Yes, you’ve heard me well. Sega just trademarked “Shenmue 3”!

As a previous Sega hardware fanboy (well, not the Saturn, but oh well…), I’m glad to hear that one of the most immersive games I had the chance to play, as well as its sequel, finally gets a chance to reach our new next-gen consoles.

Phew, this makes me thirsty for a Sega virtual tea.

I totally understand now why Yu Suzuki, creator of the serie as well as so many other famous Sega arcade games, posted in late September this picture of him.

Shenmue 3 and 3 beers, please!

So far, nothing yet has been revealed apart from the trademark filing. But we might hear more on Shenmue 3 on the next Game Developers Conference in California, in March 2014. As a matter of fact, Suzuki-san will hold a “post-mortem” hommage to the first Shenmue and will reveal some interesting facts about its development. Let’s just hope we can have some insight on the development of the third game in the series.

And guess who’s going to be his interpreter? Non other than Mark Cerny, one of the main architects of the Playstation 4… Gee, I wonder on which next-gen home console will the game ever be released?

So far, that’s the only news we got on Shenmue 3, and let’s hope we’ll have the chance to hear great news in the upcoming months. Until then, see you soon on LateGaming!