It kinda looks like he thinks that fans only cared for open world size, minigames and forklift memes...
I feel the same, but on the other hand, fans have been asking for years toy capsules, forklifts, the ability of opening / grabbing everything, etc... can't blame him for implementing these.
Not related but last week I watched a french conference about video game producing and there was a guy (Bejamin Anseaume, who recently produced Panzer dragoon remake) who did a 1h30 talk explaining how it works (related to his experience) for a studio to get a deal with an editor. And that reminded me a lot about Ys.net.
Basically he said he never signed any deal in less than 6 months (he worked with major editors like square enix). That would explain why Yu Suzuki talks about Shenmue IV but nothing is officially confirmed, it could take many months to get a deal.
He also shared his experience about what happens during the development, things like in most cases the developer has no (few) rights to communicate, any trailer has to be validated mutliple times, editors decide at the end the amount of marketing they do (depending how confident they are with your game), and also they often market any game (even with small budget) regardless the development budget. For example he said when he was working on fear effect (square enix), the game got marketing at the same timing as final fantasy XV. So people people were expecting the same "quality / budget", and a lot were disappointed at last. I feel it's similar with Shenmue III where people were expecting a game with a higher budget.
There was also some words about how important it is to have a team in place before/when discussing with an editor. If you remember Cedric said the same things a few months ago, like now they have team and it would make sense to go on SIV quickly.
Anyway, Suzuki already speaking about Shenmue IV and his plans to fix what wasn't good seem very clear. I think it's now just a matter of time before they announce something.
Just my personal opinion, but I find it very good to be concerned about "opening" the game to non fans, that could mean more sales, increasing fan base, etc... do it!