Yu Suzuki made an interesting statement on his reddit Q&A:
"Shenmue IV is contingent on fans liking Shenmue III. “If the fans are not happy with 3 there will not be a 4. So I please hope we can together make this game the best it can be.”"
Now as he also said that Shenmue III will complete the story of Shenmue that really got my mind going this morning. What could he mean by this?
So I mulled it over and a thought occurred to me. The original Shenmue story could be completed. However There may be a part II to the whole story or legend per se that we never heard of. Then I thought for a bit more and came up with a theory. Perhaps the Shenmue story spans farther than Ryo. Afterall it did technically start with his father Iwao as far as we are able to look back for now. So what could come next?
I then got a vision in my head. Perhaps the story continues with Ryo's future son assuming Ryo returns to Japan to pick up his life after this saga has ended for him. Maybe he takes both the mirrors back with him to Japan. Maybe history repeats itself in the fashion that someone else comes looking for those mirrors, in present day (by that point could be 2020+) Ryo teaches his son jujitsu and you play as his son in Yokosuka 30+ years after 1986. See what has changed after all those years. Also had a far out idea of the power of the mirrors causing the antagonist to go back in time to 1986 to kill Ryo to stop events from occurring and Ryo's son follows him to stop him from altering the past. Traversing two different Yokosukas. At that point I was pacing the room with tons of scenes in my head. Like imagine a motorcycle chase of the antagonist trying to stop Ryo from saving Nozomi, all without past Ryo knowing.
Really excites the mind to think of where this series could go. Tons of possibilities. I think it's a given that I and II will be ported to PS4 download prior to December 2017 to build a following. Sony would be foolish if they let that opportunity slip through their fingers.