he was the sony mascot for quite a while and the games sold millions.. why'd the franchise just blow up?

It got sold off to Sierra and lost it's appeal.

Yeah I think pbroy is right....I think this also happened to Spyro...:(

Because Naughty dog/sony were no longer making it.

Naughty Dog stopped making it, and Sony never owned the IP anyway, ND were not a sony company back then

Sony put their marketing dollar and mascot advertising behind something they didn't own. That was the problem.

The quality of games argument has already been answered.

bleh. idiot sony.

Aside from Crash Team Racing and Crash 3: Warped, Crash Bandicoot wasn't really a polished title anyway. Sony was big, and he was the mascot. I don't think crash deserved all of his 32 bit praise until years after his debut.

Sony never sold them, why do people keep saying that. Naughty Dog was independent at the time and Universal published their games, therefore, when Sony bought Naughty Dog all the IP's they worked on stayed with Universal, Sony never even owned them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Bandicoot_(series)

Developers

The first four Crash Bandicoot games were developed by Naughty Dog. Crash Bash was developed by Eurocom. Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and Crash Twinsanity were developed by Traveller's Tales and its division Traveller's Tales Oxford. Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure (Crash Bandicoot XS in Europe), Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced, Crash Nitro Kart and Crash Bandicoot Purple: Ripto's Rampage (Crash Bandicoot Fusion in Europe) have all been developed by Vicarious Visions. Crash Tag Team Racing and Crash of the Titans were developed by Radical Entertainment and Crash Boom Bang! was developed by Dimps. The first four Crash titles were published by Sony as well as the games being produced by Universal Interactive Studios. All of the other Crash titles were published by Universal Interactive Studios (now known as Vivendi Games).

The first five Crash games were exclusives to the Sony PlayStation. After Sony and Naughty Dog reached an agreement to sell the license to the publisher Vivendi Games, multiple developers have worked with the property and games have been released for Nintendo and Microsoft consoles, in addition to Sony.

Though some of the Vicarious Visions titles have not fared critically as well as the Naughty Dog games, they have still received gratitude for keeping the series true to its original platforming roots. In an almost opposite twist, there are also fans who praise the work of Traveller's Tales Oxford for their work in Crash Twinsanity, which was the first platformer in the series to drive away from the "warp room" interface of the original series and simultaneously reimagine certain story details. Crash of the Titans was the first to drive away from the platformer into the action genre.