Pokemon has always been popular, a drop in popular or not simply doesn't matter as it's still very popular.
Mm. And I'd argue in fact that in spite of the drop in popularity during Gen 3, the games are far,
far more popular nowadays than they were even during the "fad" days.
You said you weren't sure about the sales figures for Black/White, correct? I'm not completely sure about them myself, admittedly, but I do remember there being a pretty big deal about the number of pre-orders: about two million in Japan alone, some double that for worldwide, I believe. Meaning, by a few weeks following the worldwide release, there were
several million game sales; in an industry where lifetime sales breaking a few hundred thousand is generally considered a success, I'd say that's...I was gonna say "impressive," but that's understating things a bit. "Phenomenal" is more like it; these were record-breaking sales numbers (certainly a hell of a lot more than just "some"). Go ahead and compare it to the first-year sales of Gold/Silver; I can guarantee that the Gen 5 sales are higher.
(Pre-post edit: Apparently, Japan's 2010 sales for BW were just shy of 5 million, while US sales in March-April 2011 numbered just shy of 2.5 million. Global sales are right around 15 million right now; considering when they came out, this makes them the fastest-selling games not only on the DS, to say nothing of previous handhelds, but also in the entire franchise. RBG may yet have more sales overall, but that's more due to having a twelve- to fourteen-year head start than anything. And remember, even New Super Mario Bros. came out in 2006.)
Oh, sure, one could argue that there was a lot more general merchandising back then. I'm not about to dispute that; I myself remember the silly Lucky-Charms-ripoff breakfast cereal ('twas the first time I ever saw Hoothoot!). But as a rebuttal, I'd say look at the other parts of the franchise; the card game is still going strong, the show is stronger than ever (at least in Japan, and as said, it's doing extremely well in the US as well, all things considered), and perhaps most importantly, there are
loads more spin-off games--and not just games like Snap or Puzzle League that were made to make a quick buck on something at the height of its fad status, but games that can function on their own as being high-quality games and don't require any piggybacking off a fad to create a perceived boost in quality among the fans. I'm talking about games like Colosseum and Gale of Darkness, the Mystery Dungeon games, the Ranger games, and Pokemon Conquest. Hell, just look at the main site's side bar and see how many games are listed under Gen 4 or 5 compared to Gen 1 or 2!
Point is, how well something does as a fad isn't the greatest measure of popularity in the long term. People will buy literally
anything if they're led to think it's cool enough. Rather, a better measure of popularity is how well it does once it's no longer a fad. Pokemon left the immediate collective consciousness around the early 2000s like it was said; this really cannot be denied, what with the lull that happened during Gen 3. However, I agree that it was still far from being unpopular even then, because "unpopular" Pokemon is still mega-popular by pretty much every other standard out there, and rather than being a sign of any kind of fall, it was more a sign of transition, from the immediate, short-term collective consciousness to society's decidedly more long-term collective subconscious--less Pogs and anime, more Simpsons and Mario.
Personally? I was a child of the nineties. I was precisely eleven and a half years old when I first played my Red version, and I'm turning twenty-five next month. Not gonna lie, the first two generations were an important part of my early- to mid-teenage years, and I played the hell out of them. And because of that, I'll admit, I cherish them. But you know what? They're not my favorite; that's a tossup between Gens 3 and 5. In fact, the first two gens are by far my overall
least favorite, and I've some fairly controversial opinions to go along with that. Not gonna go into particulars here for the sake of brevity and a semblance of keeping things on-topic, but the gist of it is that I honestly think that, from a purely objective standpoint, Red/Blue/Green/Yellow are, well,
bad games, and Gold/Silver/Crystal are hovering somewhere around mediocre. I still cherish them thanks to the effect they had on me while I was growing up, but I cannot see myself going back and playing (much less enjoying) them, especially not since we have remakes, and the fact is that I simply treasure the newer things, like the numerous positive enhancements to the core gameplay, the evolution (hardy har) of the art style and general design aesthetic, and the much wider variety of game genres to choose from, far more.
In spite of my own opinions on the old Gameboy games themselves, though, I don't have any particular issues with people who prefer them. Opinions are awesome! I love expressing my own opinion, so it'd be hypocritical of me to hate other people for doing the same, and besides, contrasting opinions form the core of most truly excellent discussions. The problem is with that extremely vocal minority that, in addition to relying on the same tired, flimsy talking points and double standards, generally lack any sort of civility or desire to hear the opinions of anyone other than themselves. They tend to be the ones to throw the first punch, so to speak. It's the difference between regular fans and fanboys, essentially.
And last, but not least:
char_char said:
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
