Activision owns one of PlayStation’s biggest former stars. Crash Bandicoot was PlayStation’s mascot back when mascots were a thing, and because of Sony’s foolishness, they never secured the character for themselves, and it fell with Activision, who haven’t utilized him in the most effective of ways. What this means is that the character who was often considered to be the face of PlayStation simply hasn’t been able to be utilized by Sony in a way that effectively leverages its brand power.
Well, to all you PlayStation fans whose hearts bleed because of Crash Bandicoot, who want a new PlayStation exclusive Crash Bandicoot revival, it might please you to know that Activision can’t sit on Crash Bandicoot forever- they need to do something with it, or they risk losing the trademark. The exact technicalities- and there are a lot of them- can be found over in the interesting piece on DualShockers where they do a tidy bit of detective work, but essentially, Activision needs to release a new Crash Bandicoot property (it doesn’t have to be a game) that justifies the trademark by 2021, or the trademark lapses.
While Activision is unlikely to just let its ownership over one of its IPs die- it will probably attempt selling the brand off, if nothing else- the fact that Crash will be around in some way or the other over the next seven years is probably greatly comforting to many a PlayStation fan who grew up with the bandicoot.