Why do you act like you know these things?
The franchise is basically dead, Ubisoft hardly mentions it when they keep mentionning BGE or Rayman. They also said not so long ago (too lazy to find a link sorry) that no SC was in plans. Ubisoft Toronto has released Far Cry Primal a few months ago (even though nobody remember this game). And Ubisoft said they would focus on open world/online games like The Division.
Don't get me wrong, I'll sell my soul for a Chaos Theory spiritual successor but as a long time fan of the franchise, I've followed enough rumors to know the comeback of Sam Fisher isn't happening. Or worse, it might happen in a very different way, like a connected open world for instance.
Eh the audience is still there I'd say.
Ubisoft just launched Blacklist at the worst time possible for PS3/360. A couple months before PS4/Xbox One came out. People had largely stopped buying games for the old systems at that point. It was a bizarre decision really.
Splinter Cell Blacklist has been a commercial failure, 3 weeks later GTA V proved to everybody it had nothing to do with the end of the generation. I'm not too sure it's the problem, the audience is IMO, video games cost too much to talk to hardcore fans only.