Eh, a lurch to story emphasis has been with the series since Fusion.  And honestly, Sakamoto pulled it off far then better than Retro did with Prime 3.

When it comes to Metroid, all reason and logic seems to fly out the window and Malstrom reverts to an emotional infant.  Maybe that's what happens when you care that deeply about a property, but I really wish he'd take some steps back and try to apply more lateral thinking here.  At worst, it'll just be a bookend frame for the game (much like it was in Fusion and Zero Mission), only with expensive CG in place of comicbooky stills.

Hold on a second.  Twilight Princess is the third best selling Zelda ever, and second best if you add in the GC version.  Phantom Hourglass is the fourth best selling Zelda.  Windwaker is just barely behind LttP and ahead of 2 and LA.

I don't think you can say that early Zelda hit the mainstream while current Zelda has not.

How does lateral thinking change his point?

Plus he's repeatedly stated the game might work, but the focus on Samus as a character will not. There is a difference, so you've just shown you haven't actually read what he wrote, and at most skimmed it and are portraying it as something completely other than what he's writing.

The only thing that's actually setting him off about the game is putting Sakamoto on a pedestal, not the game itself. So claiming he's acting like an infant about the game is lying about what he's writing.

Don't go down this road. Sales equal to appeal and popularity in every context except for when talking about Zelda.

Sales of less than ten million are rarely mainstream on their own. Plus you aren't looking at sales in Japan, which are not so hot.

My sarcasm detector is ringing the alarm bells.  Is it right or do I need it checked?

It's more or less right.

Malstrom is one of many people who holds that Zelda has been steadily declining since Ocarina of Time, but fails to take into consideration that if you take OoT as the midpoint, New Zelda has sold as well as or better than Old Zelda in every single case. The series hits regular zeniths and nadirs in terms of popularity, has never been mainstream, and probably never will be.

Considring that he holds sales as the only absolute metric in every toher case, this is one instance where I find his reasoning particularly stupid.

Then no Zelda is mainstream.  You were the one who brought up the word in the first place.

Why would I bother looking at only Japanese sales when this is a franchise that is popular worldwide?  For something like Dragon Quest I might only care to look at Japan, but not for Zelda.

He's reacting off his gut, pure and simple.  The fact he's placing so much emphasis on story and immersion, almost at the expense of gameplay (something the Retroids never came close to getting 100% btw, and something I'd argue is far more central to Metroid) sort of underlies the hypocrascy he shows when it comes to evaluating Other M versus about everything else he speaks on.  There's no intellect there, he too emotional, too invested and not removed enough to be rational.

And no, I don't read Malstrom regularly, and I don't know the full breadth of his "thesis" on Other M.   I'm commenting more his little blurb at the top of the page, and the stupidity of him trying to compare Other M sales to DKCR sales and somehow imply that NCL will "see the light" and get Retro on "Super Metroid 2" or whatever nonsense.

He's addressed this point, actually.

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/email-incongruities/

#3 I noticed that, earlier in your blog’s life, you listed several games as “smash hits and sales phenomenons.”  Among these were Zelda 2: Adventure of Link and Link’s Awakening.  I also noticed that you seem to have ire for Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass.  But when given to the market, both handily defeated the “smash hits” you described.  Why is that?  Phantom Hourglass even defeated Link to the Past.  According to the market, is it not the better game?

Halo outsold PONG. Does that make Halo the bigger phenomenon? Of course not.

When comparing markets of today to markets of the past, you absolutely must do the following:

You must adjust for population growth.
You must adjust for globalism. Remember, there was no globalism during the 80s and early 90s. The NES, for example, didn’t have time to make any deep inroads in Europe.
You must adjust for gamers having more disposable income. Most console gamers were children back in the 80s. Today, most gamers are adults and have disposable income. This is why multiple console ownership has increased is because adult Tim can afford two to three consoles where little Tim could not.

Analysts not doing the above is why they could not see the decline setting into the gaming markets. This is a big reason why they all missed the Wii. They didn’t understand the Wii because they didn’t understand the problem the Wii was attempting to solve.

An entertainment phenomenon must be seen in the context of its times. Zelda II, like Mario 2, was sold out everywhere. Parents were driving from state to state just to get it. There was a shortage of supply in part due to the overwhelming demand but also because of the cartridge shortage of 1988. Zelda II was so well received that other game companies imitated its style such as with games like Battle of Olympus.

This clearly didn’t match the experience of Wind Waker or Phantom Hourglass. Complaints were made, and people called Wind Waker as ‘Celda’. None of the games were sold out. No other game company tried to copy its style.

Note to bean counters: the study of sales is the study of people and society. You cannot just look at the numbers in order to gauge social phenomenons. Markets have grown and multiplied since twenty years ago.

Here’s a riddle, which console was a bigger phenomenon? The PlayStation or the Atari 2600? Without a doubt, it is the Atari 2600 even if it sold less than the PlayStation. But keep in mind the Atari 2600 never exactly made it to markets like Japan (until after the Famicom) or in other parts of the world. It is because the year was 1977 and not 1997. The world has radically changed since then. No one refers to themselves as the ‘PlayStation Generation’ as those who grew up with Atari call themselves the ‘Atari Generation’.

The ‘growth’ of the gaming market has not been true growth. Gaming has not been made more popular. To the contrary, the ‘growth’ of gaming has been in the growth of population, the additions of more markets throughout the world, multiple console ownership, gamers who had more disposable income, but none of it was gaming, as a medium, becoming more popular in society.

The Atari 2600 and NES were held in such golden memories, different from any other console, because they grew gaming. The Wii, which was designed to grow gaming, which has more in common with the Atari 2600 and NES than the other consoles (both in terms of its mission as well as its marketing, its advertising, even its games) ended up rocketing like a banshee out of hell and was sold out in the United States for three years. Unprecedented.

How could this occur?

The Old Schoolers have been saying forever that gaming was better in the past, that gaming was more exciting in the past, that the phenomenons of gaming were better in the past. Can modern gaming have anything compare to the phenomenons of Pac-Man or Space Invaders? No, they can’t. The Wii phenomenon was very similar to the Atari 2600 or NES phenomenons. The Old School phenomenons were very strong. But today, these same phenomenons will out-eclipse anything made today. That is the Old School argument.

Look at Mario 5. While the game will outsell Mario 3, I could say the phenomenon of Mario 3 was stronger (because the market was very different back then with much less population). But Mario 5 is very much imitating Mario 3 and 4 and so it is following a similar phenomenon. Note that this Mario 5 phenomenon is playing out similar to how it played out over twenty years ago.

Zelda games were once held in much higher esteem then they are today. If a Zelda game was made with the values of the old school Zeldas, it is not unreasonable to predict that such a Zelda game could break out into a big social phenomenon.

#4 Also about Zelda.  The #1 selling Zelda Game of All time is Ocarina of Time.  The #2 game is Twilight Princess.  These games bested the original.  In what ways are the aforementioned bestselling Zeldas superior to the original games?

I’ve already said Ocarina was the biggest Zelda phenomenon. But against see my previous answers. The gaming market was a completely different place back then. I loved the original Legend of Zelda, for example. I never bought it though. I just borrowed it from friends because the game was never available. Other people borrowed my Zelda II due to the Great Cartridge Shortage, and they couldn’t find the game.

It is clear that Zelda has been in steep decline. Twilight Princess didn’t do well in Japan. And the excitement and respect the Zelda series once held is no more. Zelda used to refer to the quality of a game “It is like Zelda. It is like a gold cartridge.”. Today, Zelda is referred to as just another franchise.

#5 More Zelda.  The Original Zelda sold 6 and a half million copies.  Zelda II only sold 4 and a half.  In what ways is Zelda 2 inferior enough to cause a third of the fanbase to leave?

More competition. There were a ton more Zelda like games out when Zelda II came out. There was also the Great Cartridge Shortage. In Japan, Zelda II wasn’t even on the cartridge format if I recall. Zelda II also came out later in the lifecycle of the NES. Zelda I, along with Metroid, also got a reprint later in the NES lifecycle.

I can even show you news reports of reporters, in 1988, standing in front of a game store literally saying, “Games like Mario 2 and Zelda 2 are sold out,” where they would interview people lining up in front of a store and the people would say they drove from another state just to buy games like Zelda II or Mario 2 for their kid (also for themselves too). There was a 20/20 report that was done that was up on Youtube. I would link to it but the video was taken down for ‘copyright violations’.

I suspect even if I put up that news video, that still would not be enough to convince you that games like Zelda II and Mario 2 were extremely popular back then.

There has been much myth making by ‘game journalists’ who have been writing their own bias into the historical record. These clowns write that “Zelda 2 was not well received.” Really? Then why was it sold out? Why did so many game companies copy its formula? “Mario 2 was not received well.” And that is an absolute crock. Mario 2 sold like hotcakes everywhere.

One myth is that Mario 64 was a ‘massive success’. It was only popular in America and even then, it was far less popular than the 2d Mario games. The 3d Marios that followed have been a decline in Mario 64 in terms of phenomenon and sales. Yet, game journalists write as if 3d Mario is very popular. It isn’t. It never has been. It is chiefly responsible why the N64 got the mediocre sales that it did.

#6 In some of your latest posts, you seem to define the content of what is “Mario” and what is not “Mario.”  “Finding stars” as you describe it, is “not Mario.”  Running to the left to reach a flagpole, is “Mario.”  These facts stated, what do Go-Karts have to do with Mario, and why is Mario Kart the best selling racing game and the second best selling game with “Mario” in the title, despite this obvious flagrant disloyalty to Mario’s content and defiance to the old school fans?

The content of Mario is the Mushroom Kingdom. If I put Mario in Hyrule, it would be Zelda content not Mario content, wouldn’t it? Mario Kart is racing in the Mushroom Kingdom. It is as simple as that.

The “Finding Stars” is a type of ‘missions’. 2d Mario did not have that at all. In 2d Mario, the game was entirely about platforming, and you could beat the game as small Mario. The Power-ups were there only to assist you. In 3d Mario, the gameplay is not about platforming. The gameplay is about ‘missions’. In order to get this star, you MUST use Yoshi and you MUST blow up like a balloon. Or you MUST roll a ball around.

I have many complaints about 3d Mario. The complaints are not just about the content, they also refer to the gameplay. When I complain about the ‘Star Finder’, that is a complaint of the gameplay. Keep in mind I complain about Mario 5 on a ‘content’ issue (e.g. it presents no new content).

If you want to talk about old schoolers rejecting Mario on content, look no further than Yoshi’s Island (dislcaimer: Yoshi’s Island is a good game, but it is not Super Mario Brothers 5). Yoshi’s Island retconned Mario from being a plumber from Earth into becoming a citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom. Yoshi’s Island was criticized back then because it had crayola graphics. The game world didn’t make much sense. Why is Yoshi turning into a helicopter?

Yoshi’s Island didn’t become a phenomenon that pushed hardware. The game that did was Donkey Kong Country whose gameplay was a little closer to traditional Mario platforming than Yoshi’s Island was. It is rumored that Miyamoto was furious that Donkey Kong Country did better than his Yoshi’s Island which could explain why Miyamoto did not work on another 2d platformer for almost 18 years.