From my understanding of Japanese law (lol super duper limited), it actually is the case specifically in Japan that they could lose their older IPs, however if they are still in use (banjo kazooie just got a new game in the last few years, right?) then THOSE IPs are safe in terms of maintaining ownership.
In my opinion that’s just bullshit, but I do understand the reasoning.
However, if an IP has been abandoned, and no new games are planned, it should be completely fair game.
The “actively using” part is my conspiracy theory on why Disney has recently made so many live action remakes. They need to be able to show that they’re still using their copyrights and trademarks, so they’re just rehashing all of their old movies as live action. It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s good, because the company is just trying to maintain their IP holdings.
Similar to why they added Steamboat Mickey to their intro. They wanted to show that they were still using it, so they just slapped it in as part of their intro. The only reason that fell through was because they failed to bribe enough lawmakers soon enough, and missed the deadline to vote to extend copyrights.
