We've seen time and time again that gamers will put tons of money into shitty games, either because it's part of an ip they like, or the previous games in the series were good. Think recent Mario Parties, No Man's Sky at launch, SW Batllefront 2, ect.
This kind of thing doesn't happen with movies or TV. Movie theaters have been struggling lately because, despite the onslaught of remakes using beloved IP's, nobody wants to see bad movies. I suspect the Borderlands movie will end up being a commercial failure, yet if a bad Borderlands game came out, people would buy it.
Why is this? Why are people so willing to buy bad games?
There's a lot more selection in movies. If a movie is bad, you just watch something else. It's only a couple hours long anyway so you aren't too attached to it. Depending on what you're in the mood for, something else in the same genre could scratch the itch.
But if the new game in your favorite franchise is bad, while you could play something else, it won't hit quite the same. Even a "bad" entry can scratch that itch better than another game would. Going back and replaying an older entry is always an option (and I love doing that on occasion) but you can only do that so often. Replaying a game you know well isn't exactly the same as experiencing a new one for the first time, either.
And I feel like games within the same genre differ a lot more than movies within the same genre typically do. Which makes it harder to substitute for something else.
Take Pokemon for example, there are plenty of RPGs but there's nothing else quite like it (there are many copycats though, but they don't quite scratch the same itch for me at least)
Same thing with Zelda, TotK has been a disappointment for me because after BotW I was ready for a new traditional Zelda game or at least with more traditional Zelda elements mixed in and we didn't get one. I liked BotW, but it didn't scratch the Zelda itch for me. I feel like even OoT had more story than that, and the dungeons/bosses were actually fun to go through. I don't love TP or SS either, liked them well enough at the time but find they don't hold up to repeated replays and they don't hold a candle to OoT, MM or WW, so really it feels like I haven't played a truly excellent Zelda game since WW. Which makes the need all the greater.
I haven't been able to get myself to play TotK beyond getting off the starting area. I'm sure I'll play through it eventually, but it just isn't what I want right now.
Mario Party Superstars is pretty good though. Super Mario Party was not half bad either, not worth going back to over and over when there are other entries I prefer over it, but still fun to revisit every now and then.
If they took the same approach to Mario Party as they have been doing with Mario Kart, with a mix of new and old stages/minigames, I think it could be a winner.
