How has Nintendo damaged the franchise? All they've done is help publish the games in the West and market it. The series also has gotten much higher review scores on Nintendo platforms than Sony ones, but that was only because Capcom got better at making them and had very little to do with Nintendo or Sony themselves. 

MH4U has the highest metacritic for a Monster Hunter game at 86%, and Generations has an 85%. Comparitevly the series was reviewed in the high 60's/low 70's when it was on PSP/PS2 with the exception of Freedom Unite with its well deserved 81%. 

But the sales were on handheld. Monster Hunter's sales on PS2, Wii and WiiU are way behind those of the 3DS and PSP. It's normal that they focused on handheld, considering MH is arguably the last cash cow franchise Capcom has. The only thing Nintendo can be accused of was keeping it away from the Vita.

Besides, I'm sure Capcom liked the 3DS more because they could recycle PSP-level graphics on the 3DS. Capcom is cheap like that :P

Also, another prediction.
Monster Hunter 5 will release on Switch, and sell 3-5X better than Monster Hunter World on all platforms combined.

Really.... and what sales are you expecting then?

Also MH: World is Monster Hunter 5, that's what it was called during development. But I guess that doesn't stop them naming a future game 5.

I am not so sure, but I think we will have annulment of Monster Hunter 5 for Switch some time in next 12 months.

I guess that's why Dark Souls was such a failure.

I think the gaming press and recognition in the PS2 era wasn't even close to what it is today. Most western PS2 players weren't even aware of the game. The gigantic hype culture and overexposure in the media wasn't there. If it has good reviews in the mid 80s western media will hype it up, as will Sony and Microsoft.

It certainly has a far better shot now than it ever had releasing for 3 big communities at the same time.

edit: Just realized MH on PS2 was never released in the west, so what are you talking about?

What are you on about the first game was released in the west I have it NA even got it a year before EU, here is even a PAL copy for sale, it was reknowned for its use of the analogue stick to initiate attacks instead of buttons.

The massive hype culture has been there since the early 2000s Playstation is the platform that made that mainstream and it took off with the launch of the PS2, some games no matter how hype up will not break the barrier because of the tastes of the audience and you see this with many games for example Platinum Games have a slew of games under this and they're far easier to get into.

Not sure the context of the Dark Souls comment tbh as that series in total has never matched MH's sales and in the west sells about similar amounts to MH's western performance but vastly lacks the same appeal in Japan, DS is easier to get into as well because it doesn't require as much grinding.

Oh right, overlooked that. I was looking more at the later MH games. The very first MH that released in the west on a way lower install base than MHW and basically no hype behind it because it was the very first in the series.

That's definitely the one we should measure how the west likes the series. Fact is MHW is by far the biggest outing of the game to the west, period. This will ultimately show if there is interest or not. The previous releases don't even come close to this.

Not unlikely as soon as Switch user base becomes large enough, and even earlier if Ninty will better the online on the go for Switch with decent deals with mobile telcos for connection.

Still waiting for that Capcom game that requires a system with 4gb of ram...