Even regardless of fans modding in such visual work, people are losing sight of the bigger picture here, in relation as to why such a remaster was cancelled.
Ok, yes, the footage from John's video looks stunning. It really does. But that's just one aspect of it all. What you see with your eyes. Sure it looks good, but when one thing looks good, it makes other things look horrid. So we have those current areas remastered. That means everything needs remastered, and Shenmue has tonnes of moving parts. You can remaster the buildings, the sky, the foilage and terrain... Then we come to every single building interior, which particularly in Kowloon is insane levels of work. Follow that up with Guilin too.
Since all the environments are being redone, in game items you can interact with need remastered next. Then every single non interactable asset.
Then the animations need redone to accompany this, to keep the product consistent. But by doing this, then every single character model needs redone, and what would be that number, over 1000?
With the bar raised, new facial technology may as well be used, and if that's the case, the voice over audio will need to be remastered to again, keep it all consistent. If the VO is being remastered, then it will make the rest of the general audio sound old, from the background music, cutscene OST, sound effects too. Add them to the list.
All of that then needs to be programmed into a nice little remaster, god knows combining what new code there is with the old code. Then it needs proper QA testing, which could take months, and all before a now set date of August 2019 when Shenmue 3 arrives.
But therin lies a whole other bucket of issues. Some we have already seen in this thread. People don't like the new remaster. They don't like the new animations, or the new look. It goes against the purity and soul of the originals. Ok. But also, with a more modern fresh look, how much more confusing is that, considering Shenmue 3 is as equally modern, but built on a different engine. With a different design team. The lines between the original games and Shenmue 3 become even more blurred.
Honestly, Sega and d3t made the right call. The old games are what they were, but on modern platforms, available to buy, for anyone who choses to do so. Shenmue 3 will have its own proper, modern and distinguishable look under the watchful eye of its original creator, and personally I wouldn't have it any other way. The stage has been fully set for Shenmue 3 to take the series into the future, and I am excited to see where it brings us.