A Rare Shenmue Prototype Appears!

It's one of those posts about something cool that's popped up on eBay! Huzzah! This is quite cool though: a prototype copy of Shenmue, complete with a smorgasbord of hastily labelled VMUs that were apparently used for demoing sections of the game to the press back in those halcyon days of the late 1990s. Indeed, the seller goes on to detail the exact circumstances in which these labelled VMUs would be used:

This is the exact bundle my husband used when he demoed to the press, including save files from multiple points in the game so that he could easily show the various scenes. This was given to him as a gift upon completion of the Shenmue project.

We don't know who her husband is, but damn this is a nice leaving gift. Edit: this has been confirmed as belonging to Mike Rhinehart, the lead tester of the NTSC-U version of Shenmue. I know for a fact that I can't afford this bundle (which also includes a System Disc), but it'll be interesting to see what the lot eventually goes for. Here's the link to the auction. Oh, and the gallery is below...


Thanks to Gameboyle for the heads up. Be sure to check out his Gameboy-tastic YouTube channel!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Can't imagine it going for any less than this here:

http://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/262050942421

SkillJim said...

Hey Tom, her husband is a man named Mike Rhinehart, who was the Lead Tester on Shenmue.

He previously sold another one of his prototypes and I made a topic about it on the Shenmue Dojo: http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=49085

A fellow Dojo member James Reiner contacted the seller and actually lived close to the guy so did a in person interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LzGRZrt8Ng

You can also see James Reiner's topic about the interview here:
http://www.shenmuedojo.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=49107

Tom Charnock said...

Thanks SkillJim - I also contacted the seller directly, she confirmed it's legit and who her husband is. Thanks for corroborating though!

SkillJim said...

No probs!