Isn't the game called "Train Sim WORLD"? With the overrepresentation of European routes and some American routes, I feel it would be Amazing to add an Asian route to the game. And what is more iconic than the Japanese Shinkansen? There are quite a lot of different routes possible, but many routes would be too long for the game. possible options would be 1. a part of the Tokaido Shinkansen from Tokyo to a city that is not too far away. or 2. a part of the Kyushu Shinkansen from Hakata to Kumamoto for example. I think these lines would be great to drive on with the Iconic Shinkansen N700 series.
Licensing, Licensing, Licensing..... As it has been stated multiple times before..... Only bet is to wait for Union Workshop to start developing Japanese Content for TSW2.
Union Workshop are doing a JR East Shinkansen - probably for TS Classic - They've released teaser WIP shots of the E5 - but no further details yet.
I mean you could literally put this in almost every single suggestion, it doesn't seem productive at this point to put it in this forum, its probably best to let dovetail games decide which routes will be popular, and then they seek the licensing. This "licensing is difficult" statement is just guess work (other than BNSF, which is the only thing DTG has actually stated is not possible). Also yes, Union Workshop are working on things from train simulator classic and train sim world, but for Shinkansen, they need a JR licence either way because JR has a copyright on the shape of these trains unlike their non-shinkansen trains/lines. Union Workshop won't be able to just slap a couple of fake logos, liveries on it and then DTG release it on steam because of copyright. They could release it on their own website I guess but that wouldn't necessarily stop JR from coming after them. It's also worth noting that Shinkansen and other Japanese lines have been released for other simulators (with the licence) like Trainz, Densha De Go and MSTS back in the day.
I would note as well the DTG put a Shinkansen line in a survey a couple a year or two back asking about what routes people were interested it. If DTG feel comfortable enough to offer it as a option in a survey then I don't see why we should completely write it off, DTG clearly has some interest in the thought.
This year’s focus for TSW2 has been high speed. The next batch of new routes being developed will be appearing on the roadmap soon, so it may be worth keeping an eye out on that for a Shinkansen route, especially as a 3rd party developer has been teasing some images (as stated above) which look very much like TSW2. There’s no point saying that it can’t be done because of licensing because DTG could have all the licensing in place already for all we know.
The licensing thing comes from the TS20XX routes, as all of the current Japanese routes are currently unbranded. However, one thing to note on Union Workshops preview images is that the JR East logo does appear.
Possibly, although that logo (without the words) is just specific for the Hayabusa service that train runs, it doesn't really appear anywhere else (although I have no doubt they probably trademarked/copyrighted the logo) - and its interesting as its almost like they have chosen to crop out the words "East Japan Railway Company" from the picture (though that could just be because it was meant to be a teaser?)
