That's a very flawed argument, you can have interests in games but never get the chance to buy and play them for the reasons I mentioned earlier, many Xbox fans never played Final Fantasy because it was on another platform but bought it when it was available to them for example.

TP proves you wrong on it not being able to appeal to casuals as many of the added 4m were new to the series signalling it can have such appeal if pushed, good momentum and marketing push with 2 platforms and a unified userbase is not farfetched, you're also mistaking casuals for mainstream players as the latter are the ones focused on what's hip.

Final Fantasy becoming available on Xbox didn't propel the series to new heights in sales though; FF13 across PS3 and 360 still sold less than FF10 on PS2 or FF7/FF8 on PS1.

TP does not prove me wrong, it sold less than 9 million in spite of riding the wave of Nintendo's most successful console ever. Switch will almost certainly be less successful than the Wii.

FF coming to Xbox caused the series sales to rise again, FFXII sold 5.9m down 2m from X, XIII sold less on PS3 but with the added sales from 360 it matched X's sales, this highlights not only my point in that people can be interested in a game but not end up buying it when it's not available to them for the earlier reasons but it also shows how significant adding a new userbase into the mix is and shows new userbases who previous didn't buy the games will buy it if it's made available to them.

TP heavily proves you wrong because it flat out shows the series can have massive increases when the is momentum, now the is also an added userbase.

But again, it didn't raise the sales ceiling for the franchise, and similarly, Switch being portable won't significantly raise the ceiling for Zelda's sales.

4 million increase from a 101 million install base; Switch will not sell close to 101 million, so any increase will accordingly be much lower.

Yes

Switch doesn't need to sell 101m you have this flawed mindset that it's the total that determines the increase in sales, Wii U has already disproved this with MK8, 3DS and Wii U don't have 101m but Smash 4 matched Brawl's numbers with 25m less users. What caused the increase for TP was the momentum of success, momentum is also why on 3DS alone Smash 4 outsold all console Smash games  except Brawl.

It didn't raise the ceiling but it halted a significant slide which would have continued had those sales not been present, that extra 2-3m or so made a big difference to the final tally and that's the point it returned the ceiling, XV already has hit 5m sales in one week because of the being two userbases where as that was the ceiling during the XII era. 2-3m extra for BOTW could easily help it to 11m.

All that momentum though, all the mass appeal and pop culture phenomenon of the Wii and all the insane hype behind TP as the spiritual successor to one of the most beloved games of all time, (Ocarina) and it still didn't even get close to 11 million.

Xbox and FF are a prime example that even adding tens of millions of consumers to one's userbase can still fail to raise the sales ceiling of a franchise.

It outsold OOT which was the highest selling Zelda game and became the top selling game in the franchise that's a massive impact especially when OOT is the one of the industry's historical darling, 9m maybe 2m shy of 11m but that was just off the console userbase. When we factor in another userbase in the mix 11m becomes a possibilty because as seen with FF on Xbox they gathered an extra 2-3m sales.

On the contrary it's a prime example of why adding tens of millions of consumers raises the ceiling as they gathered an extra 2-3m sales, if BOTW gathers an extra 2-3m sales it'll break the ceiling.

FF adding 86 million to its base through Xbox 360 didn't raise the ceiling though; the sales ceiling for the franchise was 9.72 million, set by FF7 on PS1. FF13 sold 7.49 copies across PS3 and 360, so it still fell short.

Not all of the 2 million Xbox 360 buyers can even be considered additions; a lot of them would have just bought the game on PS3 if it hadn't come to 360.

Bumping to see how everyone's FW prediction fare. It did 1,153,788 on Switch and 494,037 on Wii U, making for a total of 1,647,825, or simply 1.65m.

I'm glad to see my prediction was easily surpassed (was 1m+ combined FW), but some people had really high expectations. :o