Do you think they should go 3D like SOR5 or just go 2D like SO4? Im guessing 3D for the Yakuza style series, and Street Fighter/Capcom cameos would be great.
I dont think it would cost too much to invest in a 2D remake. I wonder how much SOR4 cost?
Im loving that Sega are now doing Shinobi with the SOR4 team. Revenge of Shinobi was probably my first wow moment in VG. I went from Nes graphics and music to seeing a cool Ninja with an awesome soundtrack.
My personal preference would be to go retro 2D pixel art as in TMNT Shredder's Revenge, but only if done by good enough pixel artists. But nowadays would be maybe too niche in terms of sales, and I don't think Capcom has internal pixel artists and I don't see Capcom outsourcing it to some talented pixel art dev team.
I think if well done, 2D HD like SoR4 would sell better than retro pixel art. But again, I doubt Capcom has 2D HD animators.
Capcom has 3D artists and animators, I think they'd feel more comfortable with 3D art an animation, maybe trying to use a more cartoonish artstyle that reminds the artstyle of the 80s/90s 2D games as they did in Street Fighter IV. In terms of sales, I think 3D would be the best selling one.
SoR4, like Shredder's Revenge were made by small indie teams, I assume in maybe a handful years or so. It was published by a small publisher, who would add a small overhead. They probably had a budget of around a million (I have no idea). Fun fact: I know a background artist of Shredder's Revenge, the one who runs the team who did some port of SoR4 and I also had a meeting with a guy from their publisher.
The budget of these same games would be way higher when made at some big publisher like Capcom, because they have a way higher overhead, many more salaries involved from things like executives, sales, marketing, localization, QA etc.