There is no doubt that the Legend of Zelda series is very popular and has remained to be so for over the past three decades. When the Legend of Zelda series first got started on the NES back in the 80’s not many people could have predict that it would become as big as it is today. The first two 8 bit Zelda titles from the 80’s are considered classics along with the 16-bit Link to the Past game which was released back 1993 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. We then saw the release of Zelda: Ocarina of Time & Majora’s Mask on the Nintendo 64 between 1998-2000.

In the early 00’s we got to see the The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on the Nintendo GameCube along with Twilight Princess which appeared on the Wii console back in 2006. While Twilight Princess ended up becoming the best selling game within the entire series reach over 9 million units worldwide. It took about two decades for the series to become as popular as it did before Nintendo released the best selling Zelda game in the entire franchise. If the Legend of Zelda series started in the 2000’s with a game like Twilight Princess may not have been as popular as it was between 2006-2010.

During the 2000’s shooter titles such as Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Mass Effect, Unreal Tournament and many others were starting to achieve mainstream success. While the action adventure genre of gaming was still popular during the 2000’s there is no doubt that first and third person shooter games dominated a majority of that decade. If the Legend of Zelda series started in the 2000’s it could have definitely have been big but maybe not to the extent that it currently is right now due to how much the gaming industry had evolved since the 80’s.