It's crazy to me that this sold about as much on the Switch as the Wii/PS2 versions combined. I know eShop sales and all, but back in the day when the PS2/Wii versions were all there was it seemed like this game got discussed on forums all the time. Now it feels like it's something that's been relegated to cult hit, yet in reality it's reached more people than ever in the past couple of years.
I think ease of access (Digital) and the enhancements being more so (Rather than just control it's noe HD, runs better, etc). Is what has led to a lot of games (Especially HD ports) lasting longer and selling better. As for the talk, I think that can be regulated that the farther back you go, the more niche talking online about games was. So you had better concentrations of players relying on magazines and others unlike now.