That's not even true. The Mario & Luigi series sold better than both Mario RPG or the Paper Mario RPG series did. Paper Mario only increased in sales once it stopped doing the RPG elements.

Saying it "wasn't ever as big" is disingenuous. What you actually mean is that you and a certain group of fans want it to be like it used to be, but it's clear that the majority are showing Nintendo that isn't the case. I get that sucks for people who liked the original two Paper Mario RPG, but sales tell the story.

Which happened to be the best Paper Mario game since Super. I actually liked Paper Jam. While Dream Team was overall better, it was way too long. Paper Jam was just right.

I do prefer Paper Jam to Dream Team overall but I wouldn't undermine how I really like the locals and premise of Dream Team which gave a ton more focus on Luigi's character (which was kind of needed since he's mostly the butt of the joke in these games)

The sales don't tell the complete story, because they're not complete sales.  They only count the original release, but Mario RPG and Paper Mario also released on virtual console, and on the SNES Classic in the case of Mario RPG which is hard to know how to count saleswise.  There are also a ton of people like me who probably played one or both of the games for the first time on an emulator. Those all factor into how big the series is overall. Just my intuition, but I'm fairly sure if you released Bowser's Inside Story and TTYD on Switch for the same price TTYD would sell more.

That's just not really a good way to use the numbers...Color Splash's attach rate is the second highest, and nearly double that of Sticker Star.  Does that mean that people are really warming up to the formula and Nintendo should keep it rolling?  No... it just means you're not using the numbers right.

For example... let's take 3D Mario games.

1. Mario 64- 36% of owners
2. Mario 3D World= 36%
3. Super Mario Sunshine- 29% of owners
4. Mario 3D Land- 15% of owners
5. Mario Galaxy 1= 11%

If we applied the logic I think you're supporting, then we'd have to conclude that the Mario 3D World formula is clearly far superior to the Galaxy formula.  Not only does the attach rate beat Galaxy, but it's actually about double that of Galaxy 1 and 2 combined.  Although, then we have to deal with the fact that despite following more or less the same formula, 3D Land's attach rate is less than half of 3D World. 

What's actually going on is that titles on worse selling systems tend to have higher attach rates, and vice versa. Nintendo's core base, the people that bought the Gamecube and the Wii U, are going to be their biggest fans, and the most likely to buy a first party title.  The further you get beyond that core base, the less into Nintendo they are, and the less likely they are to buy any given game. So attach rates for pretty much any first party title are going to be lower.  Even Mario Kart Wii (which was heavily bundled and one of the best selling games ever) has an attach rate that is way lower than MK8 on Wii U (36% vs 54%).  That doesn't mean that MK8 would have sold 55 million on the Wii.

As an analogy, imagine just one person, the biggest Nintendo fan in the world, bought a Nintendo system.  If they released a Paper Mario game on that system, it would very likely have a 100% attach rate.  On the other hand if all 6 billionish people in the world bought a Switch it's highly doubtful than anywhere near 100% of them would buy a Paper Mario game on it.

There are other factors.  Quality of a game will skew it somewhat, earlier titles tend to have better attach rates and late release titles worse, but in general, attach rate tells you very little about how the game was received, and far more about the system overall. 

The way you responded was fair, logical, and well stated. I am inclined to agree with you and disregard the data I was initially doing  well done!

I mean...

that's a really low threshold there my dude. Who on EARTH likes Sticker Star. 

At least SS was unique. Color Splash was SS in hd.

See you clearly haven't actually played the game, because if you did you'd know Color Splash is in fact not Sticker Star in HD. As we all know, you can't know literally anything about a game nor have a valid opinion of it until you've played it, this is irrefutable fact so stop talking nonsense.

What? I've beaten both games and I own both games. I wasn't saying CS was literally SS, I am saying it is the same type of game. Both use cards/stickers for combat, both have a complete lack of original characters and obsess with toads, both return to Bowser's stealing something to get power. 

Ha I know, I'm just making fun of the idiots who subscribe to this idiotic logic. My criticisms of the game were frequently dismissed because I hadn't played the game myself, insinuating that the information I've gathered from people playing the game will magically change if I were to do so. I shoulda just lied and said I did play the game, there's no way they could prove I hadn't when I very clearly knew my shit about the game. Maybe then the argument could actually be about the game's own merits, but naw I'm sure they'd find some other excuse to avoid meaningful discussion and just discredit me.