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What Obvious Money Idea Are Publisher/Developers/Game Companies Just Sitting On?

Video Games Are Dumb

Video Games Are Dumb

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,033
Milwaukee, WI
Hello ya salty dogs,

With the rumor of a remake/reboot/rethink of Metal Gear Solid swirling in addition to a new HD collection, I noticed someone (sorry I dont remember who) mentioned how Konami could just put out Castlevania Symphony of the Night. Those of you in-the-know will no doubt be able to recall the brief handful of re-releases and their various audio and graphic differences. But uhhhhhh it's not on the Switch? Really? They put the castlevania collection on Switch! Even the spiritual sequel is on Switch! Would a lot of people buy it? In the grand scheme - no. But for such a simple project that would easily make up it's cost, it's odd.

Now I want to this clear, this is not a port whining thread. The above example is about my personal confusion, not my passion or desire to own a game on Switch. Another old example would be changing PSN names - which has since happened. Or a color screen GameBoy. Try to be objective and look towards audience trends that you believe would be successful even if you have no emotional investment in the property.

This thread is a "huh? That's strange" rather than shaming companies. In fact, we might even learn why some great ideas don't happen.

Explanation over be nice to each other :)
 
ChoklitCow

ChoklitCow

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,189
Muncie, IN
Arcade-style sports games. Use those expensive licenses and give us more over-the-top action rather than simulation. NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, NHL Hitz, etc. I think they could remove the physical injury components of these over-the-top games and instead just have more super-human abilities and feats.

Or, don't even use the licenses. Give us some Backyard Baseball.
 
Calamari41

Calamari41

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,099
Rare Replay, or even just the HD Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie would make a ton of money for minimal effort.
 
a Question

a Question

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,218
Sega and theirs IP. Like there are one of the biggest publisher with most popular IPs that everybody asking for.
 
ShinUltramanJ

ShinUltramanJ

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,950
Sega sitting on their entire back catalog of classic arcade and console ports.

Light gun games just begging for VR updates.
 
Eamon

Eamon

Prophet of Truth
Member
Apr 22, 2020
3,545
It is insane to me that Xbox has yet to enlist Playtonic to produce a Banjo Redooie or something along those lines.

It's such an easy decision - produces a hype moment for your conference, speaks inside and outside of the current Xbox fanbase, and seems like an easy bet to be profitable. You can even port it to Switch later (which would probably make enough of a return in and of itself)
 
Falcon Mike

Falcon Mike

Member
Jun 5, 2019
41
WB Games - New Matrix game developed by Monolith

Reason 1- New Matrix film is coming out
Reason 2- Doesn't need to star Keanu Reeves but let's be honest he's 'hot' right now.
Reason 3- Looks what Monolith did with Shadows of Mordor
Reason 4- The tech and things that can be done in games now would be perfect for a New Matrix game.
Reason 5- I want it.
 
Belthazar90

Belthazar90

Banned
Jun 3, 2019
4,316
Square Enix's entire back catalogue not being available on current systems still baffles me... They could easily make a big deal out of a 1~6 FF collection and charge $60 for it. There's also their never localized SNES RPGs which, they could outsource and sell for a nice price.
 
SolidSnakex

SolidSnakex

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,404
Jak and Daxter remake is an obvious one. This generation showed that PS gamers are becoming quite nostalgic and hungry for older platformers. We saw that with the huge success of Spyro and Crash, as well as Ratchet PS4 being the best selling game in the series. A remake of J&D would do really well.
 
Klart

Klart

Member
Jan 23, 2019
441
a Question said:
Sega and theirs IP. Like there are one of the biggest publisher with most popular IPs that everybody asking for.
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Agreed. They have so many fantastic IP's they do nothing with.

Streets of Rage 4 proves how fantastic a relaunch of an IP can be.

Even just a release of the originals: so many Master System, Saturn, Dreamcast and Arcade games left in the past.
 
RROCKMAN

RROCKMAN

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,824
Nintendo's entire gamecube library

Nintendo's entire GBA library

The analouge pocket should not exist if Nintendo was smart, because they should already have a device out to do what it does

But alas Nintendo is not smart
 
McQueeno

McQueeno

Member
Nov 7, 2019
78
Rare's Goldeneye 007 remaster.

Microsoft can buy ZeniMax for $7.5 billion and publish Ori games on Switch, but it can't work with Nintendo and Bond license holders to release an updated version of one of the most influential FPS shooters of all time?
 
Maple

Maple

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,732
A Mechassault reboot.

Not only would it be an amazing online game, but there would also be a ton of ways to monetize the game via Mech customization.
 
aiswyda

aiswyda

Member
Aug 11, 2018
3,093
Cantaim said:
Nintendo still doesn't provide a way to stream or buy their music outside of Japan. It's like why dog?
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Agreed. I know streaming doesn't make a TON but if I can't buy it for the most part, wouldn't streaming be an easy solution for passive income?

I apply this to all video game OSTs though. If someone has to listen to it via YouTube instead of Spotify, that's just money being left on the table
 
kubev

kubev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,533
California
Video Games Are Dumb said:
I noticed someone (sorry I dont remember who) mentioned how Konami could just put out Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is my all-time favorite game, but I feel as though its future in terms of re-releases or remakes is kind of off-putting. Based on the recent mobile ports (and Requiem before them), it seems as though Konami's approach to a simple re-release of SotN is to re-release the version of SotN that first appeared in Dracula X Chronicles on PSP. Unfortunately, that version of the game had its issues already, and each new re-release of it seems to create new problems.

Now, let's pretend that Konami was interested in remaking SotN from the ground-up, even by commissioning someone else to do it. Honestly, I can't imagine Konami giving something on that scale the budget or care it'd require. The devs who worked on SotN originally had so much creative freedom, and there are still things being uncovered about the game to this day. There are so many one-off things that I doubt would be recreated mechanically, and I think that sort of thing would suck a lot of the soul (a Soul Steal, if you will) out of the game.

Either way, I don't see the way forward for SotN in a positive light. I think the safest bet (and I don't foresee this happening) is to commission a team to create an emulator for the original PlayStation version of the game that allows it to be easily tailored to future hardware and maybe see about adding SotN Randomizer-style functionality to the release.

Anyway, as far as "obvious" other moves a company could make go, I'm honestly surprised Sega hasn't tried to take Sonic's friends and branch them out into their own spin-off games. It's pretty apparent that you end up with a lot of compromises by putting them in Sonic games, and I feel as though each of Sonic's friends could work well in standalone games that could give the series some much-needed game play diversity.
 
Genesius

Genesius

Member
Nov 2, 2018
15,542
Capcom putting out a compilation of the old PS1 RE games.

Rockstar has done like 85% of the work for a RDR1 remake.

Licensed arcade game ports.
 
Gradon

Gradon

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,471
UK
Resident Evil Mercenaries stand-alone game with GAAS pull. It just makes so much sense but maybe the ship has sailed on that one.

Resident Evil 1-2-3 Classics on modern consoles, why Capcom.

Final Fantasy 1-6 on modern consoles... they're all on Steam, why no consoles??? Just doesn't make any sense.
 
Dranakin

Dranakin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,968
Jack F. Delaney said:
Rare's Goldeneye 007 remaster.

Microsoft can buy ZeniMax for $7.5 billion and publish Ori games on Switch, but it can't work with Nintendo and Bond license holders to release an updated version of one of the most influential FPS shooters of all time?
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Not from Rare, but they did release a remaster/remake. It didn't sell.
 
Damn Silly

Damn Silly

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,194
SEGA could have infinite money if they monetized a Chao Garden game or even companion app for a hypothetical Sonic Adventure-esque game properly

also so many companies could do rhythm games using music from their various franchises, even individual franchises for some of them
 
Big Yoshi

Big Yoshi

Member
Nov 25, 2018
1,810
Bethesda teaming up with / hiring the mod creators that ported morrowind and oblivion to skyrim and releasing them at retail (with help from bethesda on bugs and such)
 
King Kingo

King Kingo

Banned
Dec 3, 2019
7,656
Xenogears remade in the Octopath Traveler style. The original game lends itself perfectly to that graphical style.
 
Fisty

Fisty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,227
An Arkham-flavored Matrix game seems almost stupidly obvious, not sure what is stopping WB from easy money. A clean reboot would be big news, even without the sequel currently filming
 
Phantom

Phantom

Writer at Jeux.ca
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,446
Canada
PSO HD remaster with lobbies and fixed drops
Jet Grind Radio and Jet Set Radio remasters
Dreamcast collection like Rare Replay

Basically, anything that has to do with Sega
 
rrc1594

rrc1594

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,805
Falcon Mike said:
WB Games - New Matrix game developed by Monolith

Reason 1- New Matrix film is coming out
Reason 2- Doesn't need to star Keanu Reeves but let's be honest he's 'hot' right now.
Reason 3- Looks what Monolith did with Shadows of Mordor
Reason 4- The tech and things that can be done in games now would be perfect for a New Matrix game.
Reason 5- I want it.
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Thank you.
 
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