With so many Zelda games, I can imagine why the basic premise of the story stays the same. It'd be really hard to change the basic premise so many times without changing what the entire series means. We would have GTA Zelda by now, or something. What I mean by basic is that there is an evil entity trying to take over/destroy the world, and Link, a young competent kid with nothing super amazing and special, goes around gaining power and collecting new weapons and artifacts and becomes powerful enough to take down the evil. That remains true in every Zelda I think; correct me if I'm wrong. The finer details regarding how Link goes about doing that and who the characters are in the story I believe should change and be more creative, I definitely agree with you there.

In the end this is just personal musings between us, and we can hardly start to represent the larger market without knowing what they really want. Considering most of the mass market hasn't played Zelda for the most part, I personally doubt story repetitiveness has anything to do with it. It's a complain from longstanding fans for sure, but for people who have never played before?  What I want to know is why those people pick up NSMBWii and not Zelda. That's the question Nintendo needs to find the answer to.

That being said, I'm sure a lot of original fans are being turned away from the series due to the same story. It could be why interest has been down in Japan, but there isn't any proof of it. conversely, Pokemon ... Hmm.. Nintendo really likes keeping stories the same. Also, with the success of Mario in Japan, I don't think the lack-of-sales problem in Japan resides in the story.

I could rant and rave about Majora's Mask for hours and days, believe me, but I don't want to start derailing this thread. Just let me say that I've played the game more than 25 times getting 100% each time and never do I grow tired of it. For countless playthroughs I would find small little gems I didn't notice before. There is so much complexity to the day system that absolutely blows me away. Even little tiny things like finding Sakon hiding in a tree near the observatory, and being able to roll into the tree and knock him down. There's just so many little things that you can play through and never notice.

And don't get me started on the sad-looking tree, how even Link can't save everyone, and the overall emotion in the game (like Mikau's legacy, Pam and her father, etc). And then there's all the philosophy someone wrote up about the Termina world and it's relationship to the Gods. It's mind-blowingly awesome, even if it's not confirmed to be true. It takes details in the game as evidence and writes up a really cool theory. I could link you to the page if you want, it has the most amazing theories and stories written on it.

Wow I wrote a lot more about MM than I meant to. Sorry!

EDIT: One last thing. Did you know that game events, like character dialog, are changed base on WHICH FILE you play on? It's downright mind-blowing.

The idea of these qualities you describe beinig related to flagging sales in Japan is conjecture, not analysis, ergo your premise for validity is in itself not valid.

Don't try to build some strawman about me thinking Nintendo is infallible. I'm not the one.

How do you feel about other game?

I know i'm a lot less excited about games as I used to because of that rehash and lack of creativity (it seems creativity = pretty graphics nowadays).... I feel it a bit with zelda too... but it has the infaillible nostalgia aspect :p

Well, excuse me for barging into the dialogue, but this is just wrong and close-minded for the circumstances. Anything posted on this topic will be conjecture. Anything. The one, only true statement one can make is that nobody here knows whether the defects posted by Resident_Hazard actually lower the sales. They can very well be the only reason. Perhaps they play a role but are not the most important factor. Then they may not factor into the equation at all. And finally, they may actually be some of the reasons people in Japan play The Legend of Zelda. There's just no way to truly know without conducting actual scientific research.

However, it can be discussed (and that's the point of the topic, to discuss) if the individuals in the discussion are open-miinded enough. Because we're expressing opinions here (and yes, that's everybody here, except for you on your first post when you posted the data which absolutely tells nothing about the reasons it behaves like it does), any reasonable arguement is valid, and Resident_Hazard's arguements are quite compelling (though not necessarily written in the most convincing manner) if you're willing to actually listen to differing opinions. While I disagree with Resident_Hazard's arguements for many reasons, I can't outright tell him that his points are not valid. That's just rude, fanboy-ish and kills the basic point of the topic: to discuss the reasons for why The Legend of Zelda as a franchise is diminishing in sales in Japan. What I can do, however, is try to prove his point wrong (or not valid, if you will) by countering his arguement with my own. Something you fail to do. You're just telling him to shut up, so to speak.

I will not try to prove Resident_Hazard's arguements in this post. I might in a later one though, if you are still unable to recapacitate about the way you treat other people's opinions or don't try to prove him wrong.

Why does Zelda sell so well outside of Japan? One word answer:

Nostalgia.

Zelda like all great series does not differ from the original formula that made it a phenomenon. In each Zelda game you can expect an overhead world, dungeons, Link starting with laughable gear, master keys, compasses, maps, and the dungeon treasure.

This familiarity is beloved in the West where we are inundated with gritty games with heavy mature content. Players need a light-hearted game that takes them back to the innocence of their youth. Playing Zelda is basically going back into a time machine into that magical period when you were 8 to 14 years old.

In the first place, there is noting particulaar dismissive re: arguments by pointing out that conjecture and analysis are inherently different animals with different implications for an argument.

In the second place, the correlation of staleness with lowered sales ceates a false dichotomy in which more fresh gameplay dynamics would necessarily equate to higher sales, but this isn't the case: one of thhe games that Resident_Hazard mentions as embodying freshness, Majora's Mask, is the worst-selling mainline console Zelda title in every single territory (except for Japan, natch, where it beats out TP by about 100k). Twilight Princess, often derided for being "Ocarina 1.5", is the best-selling Zelda title in every territory that isn't Japan.

I am all for the discussion of topics and the discussion of various reasons as to why something may be the way it is: that's the entire reason this topic exists, and it's the entire rason I've been carrying on conversations up to thisp oint. However, it needs to be said that tone is important in any conversation in which one wishes to build an amiable atmosphere, and it must also be said that one cannot claim to have come to a conclusion by analysis when one has not done so.

This explanation is.... interesting, but somewhat problematic. Do you mean to say that nostalgia and adhering to core principles (which some would argue Zelda no longer does; that's part of why this is problematic) does not appeal to the Japanese gaming populace?

I am going to interpret core principles as the features what I can expect in any console Zelda game. I will leave the handheld Zelda games out of this as Nintendo took liberties with Spirit Tracks that many found unappealing.

What can I expect in a console Zelda game:

1. World I can free roam in. May not be GTA style, but I can wander around it.

2. Dungeon/Instance-based gameplay.

3. Each dungeon/instance will have a master key, compass, map and dungeon/instance treasure used to beat the dungeon/instance boss.

4. Starting out at the bottom and progressing with better gear and abilities as the game goes on.

From Twilight Princess on back to the original Zelda, this is what I have come to expect from a Zelda game on my console. This is why many others and I have very fond memories of Zelda games. Zelda in this respect is in many ways the anti-Mario series of Nintendo's biggest franchises. Where 2D Mario games were linear and felt constricted, Zelda felt open during a period in gaming where the term "sand box game" had yet to be invented.

Japanese gamers preferring handheld gaming over console gaming have become disenchanted due to the liberties taken during Spirit Tracks and earlier hand held Zelda games. I cannot speak for them.

Furthermore, there is an innate innocence to Zelda which makes each new Zelda game feel like a breath of needed fresh air during this era of ultra realism laced with ultra violence and sad endings. Gamers today are so inundated with your Max Payne and GTA style games, each Zelda game takes them back to their youth where everything was not up in your face all at once.

Finally, there is a certain sense of direction to Zelda games, which make them less intimidating than say a Red Dead Redemption or Grand Theft Auto. I can and have spent hours doing absolutely nothing to progress the story in Grand Theft Auto 3. With Zelda, you can spend hours walking the map looking for heart pieces, but sooner rather than later you will come back to the next dungeon to progress the game.

In this sense, each Zelda game is not a terrible time sink players will find wasting their lives away in at the expense of real world priorities. Zelda has a definite beginning and end with a memorable middle part. Sand box games do not because they can be played how the player wants to play it at their own pace.

Staleness creating lower sales is a false dichotomy?  Generally, the staleness of the Mario Party games created, for the most part, gradually lowering sales.  That, and Nintendo was just making too damn many of the things.  Which, I will point out, is something they've been doing with the Zelda franchise as a whole.  Years passed between the first four games, way back in the day.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda  Scroll down a bit and you'll see that games that impact the most on the series were spaced apart the most in release dates. 

Numbers are fun and all, but we need to think outside the box for a lot of things.  Numbers aren't going to explain why Zelda sells less.  A theory with some thought behind it can offer a potential solution.  You can't disprove my theory, just as it can't be readily proven without, say, some kind of hefty polling of Japanese consumers.  You act like it if can't be analysed from current internet "stuff" that the theory is automatically invalid.

You know, techtonic plate movement was considered a laughable psuedo-science at one time--at a time when it was no more than a very good theory that had some thought to it.  As science advanced, the scientific community realized that it was factual.  Now, my theory cannot easily be proven or disproven (and I admit my first post wasn't glamorous, but I get flamed a lot here for what I can only think of as "not following Nintendo-love groupthink," which, while a poor excuse, never-the-less may have influenced my quickie post). 

Yes, Majora's Mask had poor sales.  But there were three things working against it we must not overlook: 
1.  It was released fairly late in the life of the N64 (2000), at a time when large-scale abandonment of the system had happened for the Playstation, Dreamcast, and people looking forward to the PS2, which launched that year.

2.  The requirement of the RAM expansion didn't help things.  Nintendo didn't really hand out the RAM expansion the way they have with many of the Wii's accessories--namely by bundling them left and right with all kinds of crap.  There weren't a lot of these things out there.  I had it, but then, I was still looking forward to the 64DD!

3.  Nintendo fans have, unfortunately, shown a habit for turning up their noses at change far too many times.  Many turned their noses up at Wind Waker just for the graphics (which were it's only real saving grace, aside from a storyline that actually sorta linked to Ocarina).  Look at the Wii--a system where doing things differently across the board has been ignored because the gamers want all the games to be exactly like the releases on other systems, just using the Wii Remote.  LordtheNightKnight admitted as much in a different thread--he didn't want the creativity promised by from Nintendo pertaining to the Wii--he wanted all the same games as the Xbox360 and PS3, just using the Wii Remote.  Which, I'm reasonably sure, completely negates the point of the thing as Nintendo saw it.  Personally, my Wii collection is of a decent size, and focused almost entirely on games that are different and only available on the system.  Oh, except for Scarface and the Guitar Hero titles.

Saying that Majora's Mask's change is what hurt it is a false dichotomy given the circumstances of it's release, all things considered.  Hell, you even backed up my theory (which you are arguing against) by pointing out that it performed better in Japan--where we're discussing the lowering sales overall of the franchise.  I postulated the theory that "maybe staleness is hurting sales" and you added to my point by showing that "being different was previously beneficial to the Zelda franchise in Japan."  This in no way proves my point, but even despite everything against Majora's Mask, it out-performed Twilight Princess--a game requiring no extra equipment, released on a console which was far from flagging in it's popularity.

For the record, I didn't buy Zelda or New Super Mario Bros Wii for my Wii.  I did buy NSMB for the DS, but I didn't put all that much time into it compared to other DS releases. 

Any tone you found was interpreted how you wanted.  As Dee Snider once said, "you get out of music what you're looking for--Tipper Gore was looking for S&M, and that's what she found."  Perhaps you were just looking for some kind of tone to flame.  I admit my initial post in here wasn't fantastic, but it didn't ask for any kind of rude response.

I know my ideas are not always popular, but without a voice of dissent, what have you got? 

....*chuckle*

Okay, I resisted the urge to actually make a joke about the Zelda franchise here.

Um, across the board, I typically grow tired of repetitive design, games with sequels released too quickly, and remakes in general, with rare exception to each.  This isn't to say that change is always good--like Resident Evil 5 or Metroid Other M--the latter of which changed in only a few ways, but most changes were, I feel, unfortunately detrimental.

I tend to like really unique, really creative, and sometimes under-appreciated titles.  MadWorld, Manhunt 2, Portal, Eternal Darkness (an all-time favorite), Resident Evil Chronicles titles, Ninjatown, GTA: Chinatown Wars, Left 4 Dead, No More Heroes, House of the Dead: Overkill, Ninja Gaiden DS, Zelda: Link's Awakening, Zelda: Majora's Mask....

My tastes are all over the place and while there are some generalizations I dislike (that I listed in the first paragraph), I tend to like or dislike games individually.

And note:  I specifically picked on RE5 and M:OM, and it should be pointed out that these are my two favorite game franchises.  There were parts of each of these that I truly enjoyed, even loved.  But in the end, both titles featured far too many things that I felt were blemishes on their respective franchises.  Both games are fraught with illogical nonsense and doing things differently that are unfitting to their respective franchises.