It could just be that the development cost is too high for modern games.

Mario 64 was only $1.5 million to develop and it sold 10 million copies, and the market wasn't as saturated back then.

When development budgets get into hundreds of millions of dollars, and in a saturated market, the idea of earning a return becomes an astronomical and unlikely gamble. Thus, this failure was so foreseeable that it should be assumed intentional. But cui bono?