This interview doesn't offer any hint at a home port or any real direction for the future of VF, but it does offer some broadly encouraging talk on the potential for more Model 3 reissues, so give it a look:
On the background behind VF3tb Online: APM3 is a service that delivers access to a multitude of games on one cabinet, so they're always thinking of new games to add, and 3tb's a game that was on their list; as it happens, Ryu ga Gotoku studio has been experimenting with Model 3 emulation, and they knew from the VFe Arcade release that Dragon Engine was optimised for APM3 and that having an in-house emulator would give them the latitude to work on online play and eventually expand to other games, plus fighting games were a close fit to APM3 and VFe had proven to be popular, so VF3tb was the obvious next candidate.
(Specifically, RgG's Model 3 emulator was not an official project so much as the obsession of a single programmer that was allowed to keep working on it as an experimental side-project for the last couple of years; the interviewer comments on how he heard the X360 Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram port was also a backdoor project pushed by one guy and Aoki says he's pretty sure it was the same person.)
On why they specifically went with VF3tb: VF2 and VF4 are obviously still popular, but it was felt that those games were of a type with VF5, and that VF3, which is a more obviously and immediately different game, made more sense in terms of variety. They also knew there'd be a demand for 3tb specifically, as it still has a healthy tournament scene in arcades.
On the changes being made for VF3tb Online: The game itself isn't changing, so new features are all specific to APM3: online play, remote password matches, saving records and player profiles to Aime card, online stat tracking/profile management, etc plus the option to use the modern arranged VF3 tunes that were recently released as DLC for VF3.
(They're also putting out a VF3tb Online CD soundtrack in Japan that'll have the original and arranged music, including some unused classic tunes present in the original arcade ROM.)
On the potential of their Model 3 emulator: they talk about how their emulator suite makes it very easy to reproduce and tweak Model 3 games in fine detail; Aoki also says that he knows the ultimate dream for Sega fans would be a Model 3 Collection for consoles (which he's quick to point out is not in the works), and that seeing VF3tb on APM3 and various games appearing in RgG8 is bound to get peoples' imaginations racing and, hopefully, cultivate a demand for such projects—if enough people ask for it, there's a possibility they might be able to move in that direction.
On esports initiatives for 3tb Online: they just announced a new official VFe tournament, but they say running similar initiatives for 3tb isn't as easy: there's no home version, for one, and running arcade tournaments requires collaboration with game centers and so on, so there are many more moving parts that have to be taken into consideration. That said, there's no restriction on game centers or communities running their own tournaments, so they hope to see a lot of events in the future.
On the future of Virtua Fighter: Aoki has nothing to say right now, but he does point out that VFe is still an ongoing project.
On Sega's current view on the arcade landscape: Yuasa says that the pessimism caused by the pandemic has passed and that the sales performance at game centers is currently exceeding pre-pandemic levels; prize machines (including UFO catchers, an area where Sega's still very active) are becoming more integral to the business of arcades, and the "oshikatsu" phenomenom of people fanatically supporting specific characters, idols, etc has led to an increase in people hunting for arcade-exclusive goods. Nowadays, women make up the majority of arcade customers.
As far as video games are concerned, APM3 is just one product alongside the likes of Initial D, Chunithm, Maimai, etc; during the pandemic, more traditional games with older fan bases weathered the storm better than more casual games, and Yuasa posits that the closing of schools had a big effect on those games, as it meant younger players weren't stopping in at game centers on the way to/from schools. Sega has a strategy of big deluxe arcade games that can't be experienced at home, but those games tend to cater to the younger set, so the strategy with APM3 is to support the older demographic by regularly releasing new games to APM3, and they're actively monitoring and searching for opportunities to do things with classic Sega IP that are a good fit for APM3.
