DuckTales got two releases on NES and two on Game Boy, plus a semi-recent release, so I think it's fair enough to consider it a franchise (though one that was idle for a loooong time). I don't get the argument for Twisted Metal, Crash, and Spyro not being franchises. Those three all have a ton of releases.

Granted, with a couple of those, we're talking about the most recent releases being like 6, 7 years ago. Personally, I think "still alive today" would mean a release within the last couple years, or at least on the current gen systems, not the previous gen.