If being critically acclaimed, selling millions of units to happy fans, and making hundreds of millions of dollars of profit can be considered "flopping" what does it take to be successful?

I disagree, mario is probably going to sell for a long time, 10 mill is not out of questions, it may not sell as well as NSMB but still, never understimate mario´s power...

 Zelda, I dunno... I see many people complaining about the art style, well we havent see really much, I think is just too early to come with this comments, lets wait until e3 and then will see. I know is going to sell millions (6-8) it may not get the best reviews (Most of the media are blinded for the HD graphics) so I guess we could see some of the reviews as "Gameplay wise is amazing, but the graphics are lame compare to ******..." and then many people turned down just because we can not see links facial hair ;P and such... Too bad for them. This could end as the best Zelda game ever, who knows...  

Isn't their a site for Malstrom type comments or at least a thread for it! Zelda SS is not going to move system, but no Zelda has ever move Nintendo hardware. 

Other than that the 3D Mario game has to potential to do what the others before it has 10 to 8 million copies.Thats' better than 90% of most games on the market.  This is just another amongst many of so called fans who want a 2D Mario game. Everytime Nintendo makes a console. If it was up to them the N64 would have launched with a 2D Mario game. Instead of Nintendo pushing the envelope and bringing in the 3D console gaming era. I'm want great games not matter how the are presented. With the way these people act it reminds me of the hardcore gamers. They say are hurting the current gaming world. No your the same! Selfish gamers who want only what you want!

why do you think that?

Will these games sell consoles?  Nope

Will their sales be less than Mario 64 and OoT (let alone games like NSMB)? Yup

Sounds like a couple of flops

Conversly I think that SS will be the 3rd best selling Zelda game (counting the Wii and GC versions of TP separately) and the SM3D will sell better than SM64DS (which is currently at 8.99m)

Well, each to there own I guess

Yes, agreed.

It's mostly the feeling that I don't like these games (when I am a core customer with thousands of dollars sunk into solely Nintendo products) and that they are away from what the market has shown they want that lead me to this topic. I don't think the reasoning in the first post is good either.

Tell me something: how are they away from what the market demonstrably wants with Zelda?

How has the market demonstrated they do not want 3D Mario? Keep in mind that 2D Mario being bigger is a very different matter.

New Mario 3DS game, no way Nintendo will not allow that to happen.

Skyward Sword, way too early to tell. I'm pretty sure Nintendo will make a trailer that will make the game look as epic as Ocarina of Time.

Really?

We know far too little about it, and judging by Galaxys sales and that of Twilight Princess, this game will sell fine, as well as both appeling to new audiences...

All comes down to advertising, no doubt Nintendo will advertise the crap out of it like usual