Its difficult because we all appreciate the mainline actors commitment to Shenmue as a series. By that I mean Corey, Lisle, Eric and Paul, given their history with us.
It's tough. While this isn't an exact science a quick google shows a VO being $200-$800 an hour. Go in the middle for Corey. $400 × 8 hours (1day) = $3200. Times that by a month that's $96,000 for 1 actor. Half that is $48,000 say Corey did it cheaper. Of course this is all guess work on my part. But for 2 actors that's upwards of $100k-$200k for essentially Corey and Brianna. Add in the other VO, director (though we're told Bill Black took a pay cut to do Shenmue III and he worked overtime as did many others to get it done) and all of a sudden you've got a massive chunk of budget gone.
So I definitely appreciate the strength of support behind the English dub but it is expensive and should Shenmue 4 have less budget then this is money, in my view, that should go elsewhere.
Heres a question, what if they offered crowdfunding to cover that specific cost. Would people cover that element on its own?