Malstrom: "My purpose is to reveal and inform people about Nintendo."

[JWeinCom]

"To put it in more proper perspective, it's the third-worst selling Mario platformer to date, beating only Sunshine (3D) and Galaxy 2 (3D). It's been outsold three-fold by one of the least critically praised Mario platformers (NSMB), and almost three-fold by the 2D game on the same platform (NSMBWii), notwithstanding that it's been out much longer and has been available for only $20 (vs. $50) for nearly a year.

I'll add that when you say "[s]o, the market doesn't want 3D Mario? Apparently they do, because they're buying it" you're not actually contradicting his point, as he's repeatedly conceded that there's a market for it. It's just a much smaller market, but it's also the one that's being catered to in lieu of the demonstrably bigger one. That seems foolish, no?"

3rd worst out of how many..?

We can't count Super Mario Bros, because that's a bundled game. Ditto for Super Mario World. That leaves us with...

Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario 64, NSMB Wii, NSMB DS, and the two land games having outsold Galaxy.

Super Mario Galaxy is still selling, and has a legit chance of surpassing Super Mario 64, and Super Mario Land.

The other 4 are all games that have managed to sell over 17 million, which is a ridiculous standard to hold any game to.

As for "catering to" a certain market, I don't see it that way. I see it as a different allotment of labor according to different needs.

NSMB Wii, with a little help from bundling, has sold about 25 million units. Let's say it was 20 million without bundled systems. Partially because that seems about right, and partially because it makes a nice round number.

If Nintendo cut Galaxy's team and budget in half and gave it to the NSMB Wii team. How much more do you think that NSMB Wii would sell? How much less do you think Galaxy would sell?

This is all just theory, but I doubt that NSMB Wii would sell much more, and certainly not enough to offset the lost sales of Galaxy. Different genres have different requirements.

But more to the point of why I dislike Malstrom, I haven't seen Malstrom say that there is a market for 3D Mario. What he's said was...

"Gaming, as a medium, grows with 2d Mario. Gaming, as a medium, declines with 3d Mario."

And that's why I hate him. It's these ridiculously broad and sensationalist assertions that make him a joke to me.