There have been a lot of upstarts to new gaming, such as Stadia which people are basically waiting for google to prematurely kill.
It's hard to make a splash without solid first party games / exclusives. The incumbents flush with cash can do those, but upstarts?
Usually these new platforms launch with at least 100 million in marketing. It would seem one thing to try aside from bootstrapping a billion dollars in high risk first party dev/publishing, is to take a small amount (10 million) and do something like this:
Acquire beloved old games, fix them up a bit with "new stuff", from a swathe of former platforms over the years. At a minimum, a lot of those, like this one, have fan patches, romhacks, custom level packs, that can be curated and packaged.
I think we'll see a lot more of this, just like the 90's saw a huge influx of people purchasing and fixing up old Mustangs and Camaros as a business for those people that could afford the car they always wanted as a teenager.
You can actually see this happening with titles on Steam, but generally not with items this old. A "remastered" version is released 5-10 years after the original with updated graphics and some bug fixes, maybe even some updates to take advantage of what became standard in the genre afterwards. It doesn't always go well though, I was just reading today about Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning on Steam (am update of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning from 2012) where people are complaining that while they did make it look somewhat better, and they did add a few useful enhancements to the looting system, not only did they not fix previously well known game breaking bugs, but they introduced new ones in addition.[1] The reviews were saying the original was better (and still great), but alas, it's no longer for sale (on Steam at least) because of the re-release.
What's interesting is that based on some of the material on the page, there's an upcoming addition/DLC coming out, so if played well, this strategy could be very lucrative for a team that's design and content creation oriented and skilled, while not having to worry as much about the technical aspects of designing the game and engine. There's something to be said for this. There's a reason Fallout: New Vegas is considered by many to be the better Fallout 3 game. There's a much more cohesive story line to it, and more interesting content in general, and I have to imagine not having to worry as much about getting the engine right freed the studio that made New Vegas (Obsidian, which is not the studio that made Fallout 3 and the engine which was Bethesda) to focus on that.
It's hard to make a splash without solid first party games / exclusives. The incumbents flush with cash can do those, but upstarts?
Usually these new platforms launch with at least 100 million in marketing. It would seem one thing to try aside from bootstrapping a billion dollars in high risk first party dev/publishing, is to take a small amount (10 million) and do something like this:
Acquire beloved old games, fix them up a bit with "new stuff", from a swathe of former platforms over the years. At a minimum, a lot of those, like this one, have fan patches, romhacks, custom level packs, that can be curated and packaged.