>>53748387I dunno if my opinion or """theory"""(opinion/perspective) matters but:
I think B/W themselves launched at poor time. 3DS was already revealed just before the launch at E3 the same year. And the narrative of "You can't get older gen pokes you like before beating the game, it's like back at gen 1!" didn't help much either. It made people compare it to gen 1 and every instance of stupid or silly design they compare to kanto nostalgia wasn't helpful. Vanillite, Sawk, Klinklang, Trubbish etc gave bad reputation straight out of the bat. "It's a fucking ice cream", "it's just a human", "it's a fucking pile of gears", "a fucking trashbag? That isn't a pokemon". I kept hearing those a fuckton at launch by people who played Pokemon. Gimmicky rotation battle was never used, and triple battles were busy and required you to level 3 pokes and consider move sets even more.
BW2 being two different games didn't help either honestly(Need a friend to get all pokes when BW wasn't liked from the start so harder to find someone who wants to buy either version), compared to Crystal, Emerald and Platinum. Even if BW2 had much more new stuff compared to those. It also felt like "okay you get past gen pokes before post game pls play it".
Also XY was announced just 4 months later(from western release) so people probably looked forward to that already if they were on fence about BW2. And as 3DS was already out and XY was a 3D Pokemon, people were much more excited for it. Also 2DS launched at the same time as a budget 3DS for those who didn't care about the 3D effect.
BW2 had no chance in all honesty. I like Gen V a lot and it has many Pokes I like(Golurk, Maractus, Scolipede, Gothorita, Joltik... Even Sawk I like) and the pixel art is honestly 10/10 stuff. Also XY Mega Evolution gimmick was a *bit* more popular than Triple or Rotation battles. Money lies on old, iconic, mons and nostalgia sadly. Gen 1 designs are good and simple, even when it has it's Jynx and Voltorb mons.
