>>58414225>masuda>made it more than a passing fadMasuda sunk the franchise. The relevance of Pokemon declined every year it was under his reign. It faded from cultural memory. No one cared about it. The DS was Nintendo's most popular console ever and a fraction of is normalfag users even played any Pokemon games on it.
Some of you are too young to remember it, but Pokemon during its beginning was unbelievably huge, and then it fell off of a cliff in gen 3. It almost seemed overnight. No one cared about it. There was some decline even in gen 2, but gen 2 was still huge. People even talked about the anime back then. But following gen 3, Pokemon stopped being a cultural phenomenon. That's why "genwunners" were a thing back then, because no one had played beyond that. It was only after Masuda was kicked did Pokemon resurface again. Hell, people even started talking about the anime again, with XY finale. Pokemon is everpresent in the modern world, it's everywhere, but it wasn't everywhere during Masuda years. Masuda MADE it a passing fad. It's getting rid of Masuda that saved Pokemon.