Splatoon 2 was the first Splatoon game many played as a lot didn't own Wii U's. Those of us (myself included) that owned Splatoon 1 didn't have as much incentive to get 2 because it was basically just multiplayer again and not much different from 1.

3 looks to have a great story mode from the trailers, so it will appeal to anyone who's ever played Splatoon and more. I had no interest in 2 but am very interested in 3 because of the single player story. Also, I suspect Splatoon 3 will have a Switch 2 port at some point which will drive sales up.

For now. Nintendo has a tendency to bomb a gen after a success. GameCube bombed compared to N64, Wii U bombed compared to Wii. Historically Switch 2 is doomed, but Switch 3 will be a global hit that crushes PS7 and Xbox Series XXX, no doubt.

Disagree tbh the old formula was what held the series back no matter how critically acclaimed any game was it would never have reached BOTW's sales for several key reasons. The old formula was effectively a very refined template for dungeon crawling this limited who could enjoy the games as well as lock the potential of any title using the formula to the quality of the dungeons the result was everything else in the game not only played second fiddle to dungeons but were dictated by them this could be seen in how the land of Hyrule was a glorified hub rather than a world you were meant to get some attachment to.

A key point is BOTW's Hyrule gets some criticism of not much going on at times but a lot of this is negated by the sandbox mechanics allowing a player to approach the same situation in many different ways, in the other games you can't do this because mechanics were dictated by the dungeons and puzzle based nature meaning you had to adhere to the dungeon crawling template to get through the games and this is where the games would struggle to bring in and appeal to new players.

I am sorry (not sorry) for you guys fans of Skyward Sword, but the underwhelming sales for this game is a beautiful thing to watch. Lol. It’s the market sending a clear signal to Nintendo, saying we do not want these linear story driven PuZZelda anymore. Lovely.

If Wind waker is a good example of a good story driven Zelda game in good demand, then why are  sales  so pathetic? Why  does the HD version with all the improvements have even more pathetic sales??  The data is crystal clear, Puzzelda doesn’t hold a candle  to open world Zelda. And most importantly: open world Zelda lights the world on fire and moves hardware, lots of it. 

OoT is a different beast.  OoT is a great game indeed, and it still carries a lot of what makes the older titles great. 

The Mario Kart 8 numbers aren't surprising, because the game is bundled with many consoles (download code). That's why it's currently also #1 at the eshop charts, because the ones who buy a regular model get this game almost for free (at least during the holiday sales).

wow about diamond / pearl... just so impressive i dont know how they manage sold that amount of games in one quarter after all the bad reviews, how much did sword/shield sell first quarter? i guess something similar...

You don't need to speak Dutch to know that handhelds are excluded.