Giorgio wrote: So, Shenmue Passport was also a way to collect data from players, so as to gather that, analyze it, extract conclusions and, through it, improve future releases of Shenmue games. I wonder why they didn't make one for Shenmue II...?
I don't know if he ment that there is a direct connection. The game does log a lot of data, that you can look up on the passport disc and it also had online leaderboards.
But Yu also mentioned that you could give feedback through the disc, basically by going to the Shenmue website with it.
Anyways it does make sense that they took the input from the players to improve certain aspects of Shenmue II. And it's not just big things like the faster pacing, save everywhere or time skip. Subtle things like the switching of the standard controll layout of the L/R triggers must stem from the feedback aswell. I can only speak for myself and say, that I switched the controlls very early on the first time I played the game and I think a lot of people did that, thus the change in Shenmue II. This could be an indication the might've really collected a lot of player information.