I fear it may be a little late in Shenmue 3’s progress to add the feature of save data transfer and not effect the release window, don’t get me wrong I really, really would love it. But it would mean adding a lot more items to the game which Ys.Net may have simply left by the wayside due to licensing issues with Sega, i.e Sega themed capsule toys. & other items Yu-san may have simply forgotten about (White leaf/Mysterious Scroll/Nozomis Amulet) - I think they are totally necessacery btw but we saw some items drop off from 1 - 2 so this has always been a slight worry of mine as I would love to know the purpose of those three in particular.
However saying that if HD collection now has dropped all sponsorship tie ins it would be nice from a consistency standpoint to have the aesthetics of Ryos’s watch, branded backpack etc to match one another from HD releases and Shenmue 3 as both will most likely drop all branded tie ins.
Now it also begs another question that now Sega seems to be back riding the Shenmue train will it be easier for Ys.net to get Yu Suzuki’s Sega arcade games put into Shenmue 3? Would love to get to see all the old classics plus maybe Power drift too in #3. Even though realistic release dates & in game date wouldn’t quite tie up for Power Drift they could spin it as a special Arcade in China has a preview cabinet or something
.. (as I believe it was actually released in 1988). Note: I personally think Power Drift was possibly planned for a future Dreamcast entry of Shenmue back in the day as the work was done on porting and emulating it on DC via the Yu Suzuki works collection game, which contained the Shenmue version of Hangon (Shenmue/Dobuita signs shown in background in that)
But back to save data transfers, personally this shouldn’t be something that should delay release of either game due to implication, I’d be more than happy for this to be added in a patch or even for a few £/$ DLC after release.