10 Video Games Everyone Wanted (But Nobody Played)
4. Shenmue II
The original Shenmue was far from a commercial success despite receiving near-universal praise for its ground-breaking gameplay and rich open world, largely due to a budget that would've required every Dreamcast owner to buy it twice for it to turn a profit.
However, Shenmue II was developed in tandem with the first game, meaning that Sega basically had no choice but to take a punt on the sequel no matter the original's dire straits.
Nevertheless, the furore surrounding Shenmue ensured the hype for its sequel was sky-high, and with Shenmue II also releasing on Xbox shortly after its Dreamcast launch, there was cautious optimism that its sales would perform better.
Ironically Shenmue II ended up selling just 100,000 copies on Dreamcast - a mere 10% of the first game - while Xbox owners, who at the time were more interested in FPS games like Halo and likely hadn't played the first Shenmue, just didn't give a damn.
To make matters worse, Microsoft had console exclusivity for Shenmue II, meaning that it wasn't released on PlayStation as surely would've aided its commercial performance.
This financial failure resulted in the series effectively going into a near-20-year hiatus, leaving fans hanging with the overarching plot - including an agonising cliffhanger - infuriatingly unresolved.
A cliffhanger which, hilariously, 2019's wildly divisive Shenmue III didn't even bother resolving.