THIS

Better examples can be found by typing "Pokemon" on the VGC sales search bar and pressing enter.

Metroid Prime 2 & 3 sucked compared to 1. They strayed so far from 1 and sales prove it. Its just that metriod prime 3 got lucky and sold a little more than 2,

1. Okay the fun in the exploration was gimped due to the problems in navagating the dark world. And since exploration is a major component of the game, that is a problem.

2. I think it's a good game. And it still sold over a million copies due to that. But other problems did get in the way. Production values can't make up if people find an area boring or frustrating (like the complaints of the wolf areas in Twilight Princess, which also clearly didn't skimp on the production values).

3. I'm denying, not missing. You have to prove it was, not merely assert it. I offered my evidence of legs, showing that word of mouth was postive for the game, which would not be the case if it didn't meet expectations (see the loss of legs for Other M). And just because there was a time gap doesn't mean most buyers were expecting an FPS like Halo. I remember much of the ads making it clear it was a different type of game than the typical FPS.

I'll leave it at that you have to try. From a sales perspective, the math behind Other M made a good deal of sense, specifically in trying to "Japan-ize" the storytelling and such. Some elements they tried worked from a gameplay perspective: FLUDD was an excellent 3D platforming tool, and i'd say the lack of appeal behind Sunshine lay elsewhere (namely in how unremarkable the world itself was), and Double Dash laid the foundation for the modern games (i don't buy the crap that says Mario Kart DS brought it back closer to the roots, the modern control scheme and weapon scheme all stems directly from Double Dash, it was the unremarkable Super Circuit that got back to the SNES roots, and no-one ever cared about that game)

I really don't know what the point of this response was, but experimentation is not the inherent evil people claim it is, though it is important to distinguish where internal experimentation works, and where a new IP could work.

I agree that if you change the formula of a franchise then you can usually expect a decline in popularity.  That being said, to stay stagnant would be death as well.

NSMBW worked because gamers hadn't recieved that basic gameplay for so long.  If that was the only kind of mario game released from the original until now you could garauntee a drop in popularity.  It's basically a middle ground.  Don't branch off to far, and don't stay the same.  Even nsmbw had the new multiplayer element (and it was great I will say).

Well I at least have potential evidence that can be verified. Do you have something more than just an assumption of what gamers thought when they bought this? Heck, Halo was only out for a year, so console FPS wasn't even that big of a genre back then.

It is true- most people either complain about how a game has changed drastically or if a game did not change much at all

1. How would being those make the sales be for the reason of assumption of being an FPS? That just means there was more incentive to buy the game, not that any of those made the game look like another genre.

2. "wasn't even that big of a genre", does NOT mean "there wasn't any notable FPS at all before Halo", so don't pretend you debunked my point, when you clearly misread it.

If you had written "and then came Turok, Perfect Dark, and other N64 FPS", you would have had a good counterpoint, but that still ignores that I pointed out the ads showed this wasn't like those games.

Such is the nature of the fanboy