>>11920353
No, they didn't use to, and it really does come down to the 5th gen console war, seriously. Gaming discussions in the nascent internet were dominated by upper-middle income American kids; working class households and non-American families just weren't early adopters. The 5th gen console war comes in given that the N64 failed globally, and even within the US got smashed by the PlayStation; but its success among American rich kids guaranteed it a monopoly over the early internet discussions dominated by those same American rich kids. It's not like working class gamers had internet back then, and you know which system they owned? The PlayStation.

The discussion switched to sales once the rest of us got online, as that shattered the illusion that Ocarina is the only game that's allowed to exist and that it's universally-recognised as the platonic ideal of the medium.