I think that's partly why they released DMC4SE. It's been almost 8 goddammit years since the last mainline classic DMC. A lot of the player base never played DMC or hasn't played one in almost a decade. I feel like DMC4SE was meant to be a refresher back into the classic franchise. It only makes sense. Why else would that announcement come out of the blue and essentially eclipsing DmCDE's reveal trailer?
Agreed. Of course, by now, it's already been more than a year since 4SE came out. It was a nice thing to garner some hype and attention, but since then, nothing else. Not even a new manga, another stageplay or whatever to help keep up the attention on the brand.
The RE-masters, and everything else in between, were clearly used as a means to lead up to RE7 and anything else RE-related that may release in the next few months through 2017. Not seeing much else for DMC, however. Even a re-release of the HD Collection for PS4/XB1 would be something, even if it, too, is nothing "new". Hell, I'd like it anyway, so I could do more to retire my PS3 for good...
I feel like RE2remake almost serves as a buffer for RE7. If you are apprehensive about the new direction for RE7, at least you've got this classic heading your way! I will admit that the way they went about RE2remake was peculiar, but I think they did it with RE7 in mind.
And perhaps that is true (or has some elements of truth). But again, I guess my thing is, Capcom doesn't have any problem defying the "short time from announcement to release cycle" anymore than Nintendo does, when it suits them, anyway.
All I, and I think any decent fan with reasonable expectations, would just like a title card and short rendered animation of Dante, so as to say "Hey. We working on this thing. Now y'all can stop worrying about the brand's future and start getting hyped!"