I weep for the various IPs that are left to rot in the vaults of these major video game companies. Games that will never receive another port, remaster, remake, or sequel in spite of fan demand. The worst offenders among them are as follows:

• Nintendo (Pilot Wings, Metroid, Mother, Star Fox, Kid Icarus, F Zero, Wars series [ie Battalion Wars], including many more, and are just overall worse as a company post-Iwata)

• Konami (Castlevania, Metal Gear series, Contra, Frogger, Gradius, Silent Hill, Yu-Gi-Oh [TCG is heavily mismanaged], and through their acquisition of Hudson Soft; Bomberman, Star Soldier, Lode Runner, and Adventure Island)

• Ubisoft were the beneficiaries of the messy bankruptcy of The 3DO Company, who were behind, among others, the Might and Magic series, its spinoff Heroes of Might and Magic, the Army Men games, and a couple of underrated gems known as BattleTanx and Starfighter. For Ubisoft proper, Prince of Persia, Rayman, Red Steel, Silent Hunter, and The Settler series have all been left to rot, while they continue to besmirch Tom Clancy's name after his death with subpar titles, so the Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six IPs will not be far behind.

• Capcom is especially guilty of this (Megaman in particular was brutally abused before being shelved coughMegaman Legends 3cough; Others include Dino Crisis, the Breath of Fire series, Steel Battalion, Darkstalkers, Bionic Commando, and many more)

• SNK of Neo Geo fame seems to have been stuck in copyright hell for the last 30 years before they released much of anything recently, having only released the 40th anniversary compilation in Nov 2018.

• Sega deserves its own post just on account of their treatment of the Sonic IP (tl;dr Sega had no main release for the Saturn, releases post hardware market withdrawal were middling, Sonic Boom was a Sonic Bomb, and Sonic Mania, a game made by a couple fans, was somehow more polished and better put together than Sonic Forces was by Sonic Team proper... how the mighty have fallen).

However, if you were born later than 1998, you wouldn't know that they have an entire library's worth of IPs outside of Sonic. Afterburner, Phantasy Star (no experience with Online 1/2), Nights, Daytona USA, Sega Rally, Golden Axe, Thunder Force, Virtua Fighter, Shining Force, Out Run, and too many others to list that would have been lost to the sands of time were it not for preservation efforts by enthusiasts and Sega releasing the occasional compilation. Panzer Dragoon after more than 2 decades is seeing remakes, Yakuza titles are seeing PC ports after being console exclusive for who knows how long, and Shenmue 3 was an unfortunate disaster.

• Electronic Arts needs no introduction, so instead of IPs, I'll give you companies that EA has killed. Maxis, Westwood Studios, Pandemic Studios, Origin Systems, Mythic Entertainment, Visceral Studios, Bullfrog Productions, Danger Close Games, and Distinctive Software, and the in-house studios that brought them to fame in the first place (RIP Jane's Combat Simulators). Here is hoping BioWare will soon be joining that list :P.

• I feel like Bandai Namco should be somewhere on this list, even though Pacman and Ace Combat have seen regular (if slow) releases over the years, but feel free to correct me on this if I'm missing something.

• Square Enix are the owners of Taito (Space Invaders, etc), Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider, etc), and Eidos-Montreal (Deus Ex), among others, including many other IPs that were published by themselves over the years, and with the exception of the aforementioned famous titles, are all (with the exception of Final Fantasy) in various states of abandonment, disregard, and disrepair (Taito is suffering from "baka gaijin", having made their Space Invaders compilation released earlier this year JPN exclusive, but that is a different discussion). The Supreme Commander series in particular (spiritual successor to RTS game Total Annihilation) is one of the examples of SE wanting to take their toy with them and go home, having gone after the Forged Alliance Forever team in the past, and as of this writing, will not allow them to use the recently released GOG versions in their (FAF) client, completely defeating the purpose of GOG.

I just wanted to get all this off of my chest. I also wanted to put Rockstar and Take Two Interactive on the list, as there are games besides GTA which they own that I wish would also see the light of day again, but that is such a corporate clusterfuck of companies within companies that I wouldn't even know where to start.

Enjoy!

EDIT: It has come to my attention that I forgot one particular big player, Sony. WipeOut, Twisted Metal, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, and SOCOM are just a small list of examples from Sony Interactive Entertainment that we will never see again. Unfortunately, this doesn't take into account their subsidiaries that may or may not have gone under in this time frame.

Activision-Blizzard on account of being around since the Atari era in one form or another has a bodycount in similar size and/or infamy to EA. Just like EA, I will list companies and not IPs. Sierra Entertainment...seriously look at their history here and sort by year released, Neversoft, RedOctane, Raven Software, Radical Entertainment, Luxoflux, Swordfish Studios, Underground Development, Shaba Games, Bizzare Creations, and a studio by the name of Behavior Santiago.

And just to round up this list, Microsoft.

Microsoft holds more than Halo, Minecraft, and Windows. They also hold the MechWarrior IP and has allowed it to continue being abused by Piranha Games Inc, on top of going through legal hell during this time frame as well (Thanks Harmony Gold, you greedy bastards!). They also own Rare (formerly RareWare), and while MS released Rare Replay, prior to that, all their IPs were left for dead.