yes, in the other article he kept talking about "flops" yet not taking in consideration sales of games, e.g. New Super Mario Bros

I like his "put a game in the middle of a bar or mall" theory better. Put it in front of the average Joe, not someone who's hobby is that work. That's why comic books have fallen so hard. They're selling to the geeks, not to the mainstream.

You're changing it around and in the process lost an adjective.

He didn't say content wan't linked to sales. He said he wasn't linking it to "pure" sales. He said afterward that Sales are affected by many factors.

"

This doesn't change the fact that the theory is still disorganized.

He never addressed how his theory falls apart in Japan when moving from The Lost Levels to SMB 3.  He never addressed how it falls apart in Japan when moving from SMB 3 to SMW (especially since it is on a smaller install base).  Same when moving to Super Mario 64 in America.

I would say that the content of Mario Kart, as defined in this piece as what is left when the player turns off the game, is something like the Mushroom Kingdom's version of NASCAR.  That is the same for every Mario Kart.  Yet in previous pieces he has complained that the N64, GC, and GBA versions are lacking in contnet.  This does not make sense in that context.  The sales of those games don't support that either.  The N64 version outsold the SNES verion on a smaller install base.

In this piece, he makes the claim that the Zelda series was adding content up until Ocarina of Time, and that the series was seeing increased sales due to that fact.  He also claims the series has stopped adding content since then, and only connects to the timeline.  I already have shown that he is just wrong on the sales of the Zelda series.  That would mean that according to Malstrom the series was seeing decreasing sales despite adding content.  That is a direct contradiction of his theory.  Not only that, but the combined sales of TP have passed the first Zelda.  Pretty good for a game that is apparently devoid of new content.

Malstrom is just making his theory up as he goes, and tailoring it to his own personal taste in games.

@theRepublic

Can you tell me what you think his theory is?

I think you might be confused as to what he's really saying.

Perhaps he's referring to not just how a game performs in its own generation, but whether it continues to do so as time goes on?

 True, but I believe it was also the first Mario platformer (aside from Mario Land on the GameBoy, which came second to the original Pokemon games) that did not lead its system in sales. The fact that more people bought a Gamecube for Meelee and Mario Kart, when in previous generations the trend was the exact other way around, IS pretty important.

malstrom is overrated, pointing out some things and being right some times doesn't grant he will be right all times (he does seem to think otherwise though)

He has been wrong before, and has admittedly examined what he did wrong about it. That's still more than Pachter does.

I like most of what Malstrom writes, but the fact that his defense to critics is always some combination of  "you didn't understand what I said" and quietly altering his position is really annoying.