Looks like another popular franchise is getting a remaster.Might not be officially confirmed, but it's interesting. Sadly, both of these properties are owned by Activision and doesn't have bearing on TM, but this will mark the second trilogy remaster on PS4. Along with MediEvil, there have been a pretty healthy amount of PSOne remasters. Maybe Sony will take notice if the next two are successful as well.
Really, take a look at the playing field. Pulling up the list of best-selling PSOne games shows that a ton of them are being remastered currently or have already been remastered.
- Resident Evil 1 - March 22nd, 2002 then re-released on PS4 in an HD collection.
- Resident Evil 2 - WIP
- Final Fantasy VII - WIP
- Oddworld New N' Tasty - July 22nd, 2014
- Parappa the Rapper - Released
- Crash Bandicoot Trilogy - Released
- Spyro Trilogy - WIP
- MediEvil - WIP
So looking at the list of whats left, there are only a few more viable franchises ahead of TM2. Gran Turismo won't get a remaster because why would it? The gameplay is dated and while the cars are amazing, Gran Turismo 6 had almost if not all of the cars from both of the first two games in them. The gameplay is too dated and if anything, Gran Turismo needs a complete reboot.
Final Fantasy VIII and IX would be a valid argument but those won't even be considered until after Final Fantasy VII is completed.
The Tekken series would probably be ripe for a remaster, but with so many different games in the series I don't know how high up on the chain that would be. I'm not too familiar with Tekken so I can't say much about it, but I know in recent memory there were several Tekken games on the PS3 alone.
Tomb Raider would be a great trilogy for a remaster and will likely be looked at due to the success of the reboot.
Spider-Man is currently getting rebooted for PS4 consoles, and Tony Hawk was rebooted (poorly) as well.
Croc the Legend of Gobbos, please make this happen.
Mortal Kombat: Trilogy could definitely be viable and sell well, although I'm not familiar with the fanbase enough to know if thats something they would want.
Crash Bash and Crash Team Racing could probably do well in an HD Remaster advertised-as-party-games pack, but I DO NOT think that would happen. If anything, I think CTR would get a budget remaster as a PSN only release.
Metal Gear Solid 1 would be a good one.
So ignoring licensed games, the only real games left on the list as contenders for getting remasters are Dino Crisis, Syphon Filter, Parasite Eve, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy Tactics, and of course---Twisted Metal.
Twisted Metal 1-4 sold over 5 million copies combined. So looking at the list of Dino Crisis - Tactics and their respective series, the games average somewhere between 1.9 million and 4 million, none having more combined sells than Twisted Metal 1-4. Tomb Raider sold exponentially more than Twisted Metal, as did Tekken and Final Fantasy. So arguing these points, if Sony took interest and ignoring the reboot, Tomb Raider would be next, potentially followed by Tekken. IF the Final Fantasy VII reboot does well (and it will) FFVIII may happen, but I don't believe IX will. By that logic, I think the odds are actually kind of in our favor of a reboot sometime in the future.
The only real contenders ahead of it, in my opinion, would be:
- Tomb Raider
- Metal Gear Solid (if Konami doesn't fuck around - good luck)
- CTR
- Silent Hill (fuck Konami)
- maybe Tekken
This post is of course ignoring third-party rights and things like that. Games owned by Square Enix/Konami/whoever-the-fuck-else could be remastered on their own terms. However, in the interest of talking from the perspective of Sony seeking out arrangements, this is what I've came up with. Another possible alternative with Spyro and Crash could be a trend of platformers. Then we could see games like Gex and Croc. Crash got a timed-exclusivity release on PS4, although I wouldn't expect the same from an IP like TM. That's the only real difference, TM would be completely at Sony's mercy as opposed to the other games being made by 3rd-Party companies. Admittedly, that's a big difference. However, it is interesting to see from a numbers stand-point where that would be Sony in the event of them looking to make some quick and easy cash off of remasters.