#Neku couldn't have followed the same logic because he didn't know that conductors couldn't do that

[purplelea]

Something that just occurred to be is that is isn't extremely weird for Neku and Sho to only be allowed to use one pin at a time? Because we know for sure that in the og Neku was able to use six of them and we can easily guess that Sho could as well, given his Imagination level. It's likely that Beat could, too, but I'm not well versed enough in the og's gameplay to tell.

In any case, neither Neku nor Sho can use more than one pin at once. Another piece of dialogue from Sho also reveals that the level caps on the pins have been removed, making them usable by any player regardless of their level.

Those two factors are some pretty big changes—we see how surprised Sho is when he realizes the latter. My question is: how were they made possible?

There is no reason why Kariya or Uzuki, when in control of Shibuya, would make those changes. Joshua wouldn't have either, because they make no sense in Shibuya's Game. So that only leaves Shiba, who probably made them to fit Shinjuku's rules better. Only thing is, that Sho has been Conductor before, so he should have been aware that this was a possibility. Yet his reaction makes me believe that he never considered it possible (it is possible that he didn't consider it simply because he didn't think about it or because it wouldn't have helped him with his plans anyway, but I think he genuinely didn't know it could be done) which then leads to the logical conclusion of: only a higher power could've done this.

I believe Kubo's the one who made those changes to Shibuya's Game, or Shiba, but thanks to Kubo's powers—in any case, it's a intervention of the Higher Plane. Sho isn't stupid and probably guessed it right away. I am thus adding this to the list of hints he got in order to guess who was behind all of this