The apple and banana appears to be a subtle tease from S3, shenhuas house and hotel niaowu immediately struck me where those fruits were found everyday in the areas ryo stayed. Same as the forklift tease before the Kickstarter.
They never publicly denied the rumours or dismissed speculations from the fans online. They liked almost everything around the gossip, the fans messages, followed the dojo account and shenmue forever account on twitter.
The "announcement" is in a couple weeks. The anime is ending in 2 weeks.
The owner and founder of 110industries is also following the dojo on twitter.
This is "the year of the tiger" as yu put it.
Yu "Hopes to have something to announce this year".
110industries "guess why you was at our stream
"