How can they lose the license to Shenmue, when Ryo has been a guest star in a bunch of games? Don't they fall under an umbrella copyright or is every single character in a game individually protected...which seems stupid and unlikely.
I asked one of the sumo digital guys at a guest lecture about getting the rights for characters in sonic racing games actually. He explained that they had to go to the creator of each individual character as they are the copyright holder for the character.