Though it may not be a sales juggernaut on the scale of Mario or The Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem is one of Nintendo's preeminent franchises. Like so many of its vaunted stablemates, the series is almost as old as Nintendo's gaming ambitions, debuting on the Famicom and appearing on nearly every home and handheld console since. Given this prominence, it's almost difficult to believe that Fire Emblem's future was ever in jeopardy, but such was indeed once the case; there was a point in time when the series was very much on the verge of cancellation, and it took a dramatic shakeup to reverse its fortunes. The series' second worldwide release (and final GBA installment), The Sacred Stones , arrived in 2005 and moved more than 700,000 copies over its lifetime, while GameCube's Path of Radiance followed later that same year and sold more than half a million copies–well enough to satisfy Nintendo's expectations, considering the system's age and comparatively small user base.
Источник
GameSpot