A Brief History of Shenmue

• 1994: Development begins in secrecy for several years until rumours of a 'Virtua Fighter RPG' on Saturn's successor.

• June 1998: Virtua Fighter characters dropped, renamed 'Project Berkeley'.

• 28th November 1998: Project Berkeley rolling demo disc given away with Virtua Fighter 3tb.

• Tokyo Game Show 1999: Pictures and video of Shenmue are shown.

• June 1999: Playable 'What's Shenmue?' demos given away with Dreamcasts in Japan.

• 28th October 1999: Shenmue released in Japan (or not).

• October 1999: Shenmue delayed until Spring 2000.

• 18th November 1999: Shenmue is bought forward again to 29th December 1999.

• 29th December 1999: Shenmue Part 1 is finally released in Japan.

• May 2000: The official US release date is set at the E3 show in LA for Tuesday November 14th 2000.

• 11th November 2000: Shenmue is finally released in the US. Dailyradar.com call it the best game ever.

• 20th November 2000: Shenmue Part 2 will now apparently be released in Japan in Q3 2001 on 6 discs.

• 25th November 2000: First batch of PAL Shenmues hit the UK a week early.

• 6th July 2001: US Shenmue (Shenmue with English voices) is released in Japan and is greeted with appalling sales.

• 6th September 2001: Shenmue II is released for the DC in Japan.

• 12th October 2001: Shenmue II is cancelled in the US for Dreamcast and heads for a Q3 2002 release on Microsoft's Xbox.

• 23rd November 2001: Shenmue II is released in English on the PAL Dreamcast in the UK a week early.