Malstrom responds to my 'Mario and his Content' forum post

[theRepublic]

You can read the whole thing here: http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/email-mario-and-his-content/

I feel like he sidestepped a lot of my criticism, instead of addressing it directly.  He did seem to back off his position on Super Mario World a bit though.  He also more clearly stated that he is not trying to link new content to successful sales, but instead is linking content to a successful entertainment product.  In other words, a game with new, fresh content is a good game in his eyes.  To me, that makes his theory quite a bit more vague.

Upon initial reading, I only noticed one error.  Near the end, he claims that Zelda game sales kept increasing up to Ocarina of Time.  This is not true.  In chronological order:

The Legend of Zelda (NES)	6.51 million
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)	4.38 million
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)	4.61 million
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GB)	3.83 million
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (GBC)	2.22 million
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)	7.60 million
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64)	3.36 million
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC)	1.86 million
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC)	1.92 million
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (GBA)	2.58 million
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GC)	4.55 million
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA)	1.34 million
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)	5.32 million
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GC)	1.56 million
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)	4.53 million

I'm glad he at least took the time to respond though.