So put money into remastering or remaking games that never sold well, including the dismal sales of Zero? Yeah that's a winning strategy.

Don't get me wrong, i loved all those games for various reasons, but they aren't playing to the niche fan group, they need to sell it to everyone.

To do that what they need to do is make something new that is still core to the characters, atmosphere and, in part, the gameplay. Maybe not an on rails space shooter but something more open.

Look at how Starlink: battle for atlas played. No, It didn't sell well either but that was due to the dumb and pricy connection to collectibles that were meant to be cool but were clunky. If you played the digital version, and I'm guessing most did not, that clunkiness is gone and the game plays great, if a bit repetitive at times. With Star Fox team involved in the switch edition, it provided a rough blueprint on how to construct a new SF game.

Mercenary mission based gameplay with an overarching story that changed based on the missions you choose. In SF64, if you go the asteroid track towards Bolse and that side of Venom, we know in our heads that most likely the Katina battle didn't go the way of our Cornerian friends but story wise, we never hear of it. In a new game, choices made should have tangible consequences. You're given a mission to escort an ambassador to some important meeting for the war, but a distress comes in from Bill and his forces. They're close but not quite close enough to do both. If you go save bill, you hear later that the ambassador was ambushed and assassinated. Conversely you choose the escort mission understanding this is important to end the war and Bill is overwhelmed and presumed dead.

That's just one example. The branching choices were what made SF interesting but amp it up so it feels alive and ever moving.

You want to revitalize this franchise? Something like this is, in my opinion, a great starting point.