You all probably have heard about this already but I thought I'd make a topic since it's coming up very quickly! Sometime this week he's going to talk about the making of Shenmue during this year's Game Developer's Conference. There could be something to this. Earlier this year Ryo was released for Sega and Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed and the license plate on the back of his Outrun vehicle said "SHEN 3".
He also said during an interview a couple of years ago that his studio could get the license from SEGA.
If anything it should be an interesting talk.