| RageBot said: He is right, check any game outside of Final Fantasy and KH, there are very few who sold over 500K in the west. Pokemon isn't in the same category, because desipte it having similar gameplay, it had an extremly hyped anime (one of the first hyped animes in the west), movies (plenty of pepole heard about the games after the anime), and it's an experience that is 100% non-story focused, but multiplayer focused, based on meeting and playing with other pepole. |
Pokemon's game actually launched alongside it's anime in America, though only in syndication (it wasn't actually picked up by a major network until a year later, well after the Pokeboom started). It was one of the earlier examples of gaming "cross-pollination", or using various media to launch a new IP. The movies all came later here though. Strange that you'd try to discount Pokemon success due to external forces, when Kingdom Hearts mass appeal is based almost entirely off well established Disney licenses. ;)
Also, I don't see how (non)story focus & multiplayer really changes anything? Hell, I could argue multiplayer RPGs actually come closer to the genre's D&D/dice roll roots than something like FF or KH.
