I'm sure most of us (if not all) have heard someone say, at one time or another, that the Pokemon franchise is dead. That's the kind of thing that often inspires a massive debate (see: argument) between whoever hears the comment.

What I want to know is, what evidence do you use in the debate? First of all, do you agree with that initial statement, or do you disagree? Or are you somewhere in between? And second, how do you support your view? What do you use to argue your point of view?

As an example, I remember a topic awhile back in Pokemon Anime where WPM cited a bunch of Nielsen ratings for a given week - on that Saturday, Pokemon dominated all of its competitors, including other shows on the WB. His argument was that if people still watched Pokemon far more than any other show, it couldn't be faltering.

If I were to have such a debate now, I'd probably use GameFAQs (yes, pretty much the only thing I ever cite) as my evidence. If you look on their main pages for each game, this is what you may notice about various systems' top games (based on user activity):


Game Boy

# 01 Pokemon Blue
# 02 Pokemon Yellow
# 03 Pokemon Red
# 04 Zelda: Link's Awakening
# 05 Tamagotchi
# 06 Pokemon Green (never released in the U.S.)


Game Boy Color

# 01 Pokemon Crystal
# 02 Pokemon Gold
# 03 Pokemon Silver
# 04 Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
# 05 Zelda: Oracle of Ages
# 06 Zelda: Link's Awakening DX
# 07 Dragon Warrior III
# 08 Dragon Warrior Monsters
# 09 Pokemon Trading Card Game (not a main game)


Game Boy Advance

# 01 Final Fantasy VI Advance (recent - released two days ago)
# 02 Pokemon Emerald
# 03 Pokemon FireRed
# 04 Final Fantasy V Advance (recent - released a couple of months ago)
# 05 Pokemon LeafGreen
# 06 Pokemon Ruby
# 07 FF Tactics Advance
# 08 Pokemon Dungeon Red (not a main game)
# 09 Zelda: Minish Cap
# 10 Pokemon Sapphire


Nintendo DS

# 01 Final Fantasy III
# 02 Castlevania: PoR
# 03 Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
# 04 Diddy Kong Racing
# 05 Hotel Dusk: Room 215
# 06 Phoenix Wright 2
# 07 Animal Crossing WW
# 08 Pokemon Diamond (only top 10 game not released in U.S.; expected in two months)
# 09 Jump! Ultimate Stars
# 10 New Super Mario Bros. (highly marketed, yet below an unreleased Pokemon game)


(End of some lists omitted in order to conserve space.)


Yeah, that's pretty much what I'd go with. But what would you argue? What's your point of view, and how would you present it? What would you do?

Let us know what you have to say!