To mark the end of the "Shenmue 3" Kickstarter campaign on July 17, creator Yu Suzuki posted an update thanking all the contributors and backers after managing to raise $6 million in funding. Suzuki also confirmed that the project is already in its early development stage.
Suzuki wrote on the "Shenmue 3" Kickstarter campaign page, "We have just started getting into development, and as we move ahead, I will listen to all of you to make Shenmue III even better."
According to iDigital Times, Suzuki did not confirm the exact release date of the game. However, there are speculations that the game will be released first on the PlayStation 4 platform before the end of 2017.
Even though YS Net, developer of "Shenmue 3," has opened up a partnership with Sony, one hundred percent of all the Kickstarter fund will go directly to YS Net. Suzuki announced the third sequel of the well-beloved classic video game during the Sony presentation at the 2015 Electronic Entertainment Expo which led many backers to believe that the funds will go directly to Sony. However, Suzuki cleared the confusion after the E3 conference stating that the Kickstarter funds will go directly to YS Net for the development of the game.
The "Shenmue 3" campaign has broken several Kickstarter campaign. It reaches $1 million in just a span of 102 minutes making it's the fastest video game campaign to reach that mark. The campaign was able to reach its $2 million target in less than nine hours after it went live.
When the campaign closed on July 17, it received a total of $6,333,295 donations and became the sixth most funder campaign in Kickstarter.