>>13228328It's not a failure, no product generation that moves 20+ million units can sanely be called a failure. It's definitely suffered quite a bit from a combination of arriving at the end of its platform's life, when interest was dying off and a rush to bolster a new platform that's posting tepid numbers outside of Japan, though.
It's a shame, and it kept the Gen from ever getting that one "all of your good ideas in one package" game as we got in Gen 4, but I don't think it could have been avoided.
If Gen 4 was a year shorter and Gen 5 started a year earlier, I think that the gap in generation sales would have been smaller. Plus Game Freak would have had a chance to print 8-10 million free sales with a Hoenn remake as it did with FR/LG in Gen 3 and HG/SS in Gen 4.
As for what Gen 6 holds... We'll see, but I see margins on games from here on out getting slimmer, even if the numbers magically get better. It's a significant leap to go from sprites to full poly models.
