The install base is important. But to a certain point. It's like a bottle with water. You can get a gallon bottle to store 3 quarts of water. But the rest is useless. But it's better than only having a two quart bottle. Once the install base is big enough. That's it. Nothing will help a game improve than its usual ceiling. Except for the randomness of outside influences. You can even make games look horrible this way too.
Take COD. It sells 15 milion copies. That's amazing. But if you look at the install base, of say 80 million. It's shit. Anything would look bad. If you looked at it that way. Take the Super Bowl. It usually gets 120 million viewers. If I'm right. Compared to the whole US population. Not even half watch it. That's why for Pokemon. The DS runaway sales loss. Doesn't really matter, for the 3DS games.
