The problem is that while Crash 4 sold well on its own merits, it sold much less than the N. Sane Trilogy, like 80% less.

This is the problem with Activision, they killed Crash and Spyro once, they can do it again, Universal Interactive Studios was also a scummy publisher and Naughty Dog hated working with them even before Crash 1 was released, but they knew mascot games can sell a lot.

Look at Sega, most Sonic games don't sell that well, only 1 million or 2 million copies sold, and some of them even failed, but Sega is not going to kill the character that is the symbol of the company, Activision would kill Crash, again, they done it before.

Also, the problem is with the whole Activision Blizzard conglomerate, even though they had record profits, they kept firing their workers to cut costs, but CEO Bob Kotick kept raising his own salary, even the stock investors started complaining, and now they are fucked and Bobby had to change his mind and cut his own salary.