Anticipation is sweeter than realisation. Some of us like to have something to look forward to at christmas, others are just plain busy in December to get into stuff like that. It's a completely false insinuation that only the real fans purchase games at launch, particularly when those games are released deliberately for the holiday season.
And FYI LttP is one of my top 5 games, LA, TP and OOT all in the top 20. I enjoyed WW and MM quite a bit as well. Skyward Sword is the most disappointing title in the series I've played from what I've seen so far and a notch below the usual Zelda standards. This is the first time I've ever had negative things to say about a Zelda game.
And I'm not sure where the universal praise thing is coming from, the only review I'd looked at for it was gametrailers which described it as the "first grey hair in the series". It would be unusual for GT to be saying things for the sake of controversy.
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