There has been a lot of discussion, especially in the last few days, about the sales potential of realistic vs cartoon Zelda games. The easy answer would be yes, the dark, gritty, more realistic Zelda games have higher potential to sell than the bright, colorful, cartoon entries due to the fact that Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess are the best selling entries in the series history at 7.6m and 6.95m(8.54 Including GC version) compared to 4.6m and 3.75m for Wind Waker and Skyward Sword. But is it really as simple as that? For one Ocarina of Time was one of the most revolutionary games ever and is often considered the greatest game of all time, would sales really be that much lower with a brighter and more colorful artsyle? Another thing to consider is Twilight Princess sold less than double the amount of Wind Waker despite having nearly 6x the install base to sell to. If u believe install base doesnt matter than how come Majora's Mask sold less than Skyward Sword? The both had many similarities, released near the end of generation when the console was already declining and about to be replaced plus they also both required an add on to play. The only difference is Majora's Mask was dark and Skyward Sword was colorful, if artstyle really affected sales then shouldnt MM have outsold SS? So what are ur thoughts, does artstyle play a major role in how well Zelda games sell?

You make good points, I don't believe artstyle affects sales much either. You might want to try some paragraphs, though.

Majora's Mask had a 3 day cycle and it was the reason why it sold so poorly. Stupid gameplay mechanic....

Nope. I mean obviously yes, but the difference is marginal. TP being a launch title for the most successful console Nintendo has ever launched who's main selling point was the most successful gimmick Nintendo had ever created doesn't constitute as "proof" of anything.

to the Masses, I don't know, it does for me though.

I did, not sure why they didnt show up.....

Twilight Princess helped sell the Wii in the first place. It was the first game to appeal to the hardcore audiences.

The casuals who bought the Wii in droves generally did not buy TP.

OT: Yes. TP and OoT all sold much, much more than WW or SS. MM flopped because it came out after the Gamecube was pretty much already announced, and Nintendo didn't have the time or resources to market it the way they did OoT.

Any game in the Zelda franchise would have sold that well in TP's position. It didn't sell because TP was "realistic." It sold because it was Zelda with motion controls at the launch of the Wii.

No.

It sold well on Gamecube too, which didn't have motion controls.

And why didn't SS sell well then? It came out when 90 million people already owned a Wii, had better motion controls than anything before, and still managed to flop. 

People like realistic graphics. TP was praised as the second coming of OoT before it was even released due to the adult Link and graphics. The GC version alone had unprecedented sales, especially seeing as that Nintendo pretty much cut support for the system right after. Not as much as the Wii, but a lot for a dead system.