| Lawlight said: There's my point - you can't expect a Musou game that has a recognized name associated to it sell only as well as any other Musou game. Zelda isn't close to GTA but it's still a relatively big franchise. So, the fact that it sold on par with other DW games makes these sales look weak. |
You had me up until "its sales look weak." When you consider all of the factors, especially the install base of the platform, they don't look weak at all.
Let's try approaching it like this. If you don't want to think of it as being tied to the Dynasty Warriors IP, fine. Don't. Consider it a part of the Warriors genre. Hyrule Warriors is indisputably a Warriors-genre game, and not an action-adventure Zelda game. Comparing sales of Hyrule Warriors to those of other Warriors games is no different from comparing Forza and GT, both racing sims.
We don't expect Pokemon spin-offs like Mystery Dungeon and Ranger to have comparable sales to the main RPGs. We don't compare sales of the Mario sports and party spin-offs to those of the main platformer games. Half the time I have to hear about how Golden Abyss doesn't count as an Uncharted game just because it's not made by Naughty Dog, to say nothing of the card game.
Just because they slapped Link on the cover doesn't mean we should expect this game to get main series Zelda game sales. On the other hand, a Warriors game with Warriors gameplay and Warriors in the title sold exceptionally well even on a very unpopular platform thanks to a Zelda theme. So, mission accomplished: the Zelda theme helped lure more Westerners into playing a Warriors game.
