With NPD data for December showing sales in USA alone at 1.3 million, it looks like this game may have already sold 2 million copies worldwide in less than 2 months.  Its success may seem to buck the trend of what usually happens to 'traditional' third party games on the Wii, but I think this may be for a variety of reasons that other third parties might do well to consider:

- It genuinely is a of a genre that has traditionally been popular with gamers, rather than one that is traditional but which has always been quite niche (e.g. light gun games such as Dead Space: Extraction)

- Its development budget probably came closer to the budgets of 'blockbuster' HD games than third party Wii games usually bother with

- It received decent TV marketing, which is often something publishers of traditional third party games on the Wii don't seem to think is important (e.g. Red Steel 2)

I think if more third parties developing for the Wii ticked the above boxes (so to speak), far more traditional third party games on the Wii would see success.  Can people think of many examples of third party games which have done this but which have failed regardless? 

It is a lesson, a lesson I doubt anyone really even learned. 

This.

If you make a AAA game, and means in all facets (AAA budget, AAA talent, AAA promotion, AAA brand, etc), then you can get AAA sales on Wii.  MH3 already proved this in Japan also a year and half ago, and just look at all those AAA 3rd party games that have been rolling in since...

This thread has already been won.

The lesson is: Don't fuck up a huge IP and IT will do well. 

Goldeneye seems to have good sales too.

But did it really matter? For 2011 there are already many Top-Wii-Games in the pipeline (most oft them from Nintendo) and 2012 we see the next console generation. Even if some third parties are now thinking: Wow this is a great market we will spend lots of money an two years in our next Wii game ... it is too late.

Only third parties that already realizied the potential of the Wii market and have Wii games in the pipeline will have success in the next two years.

I'm not sure what you mean.

I suspect GoldenEye would have done even better so far if it hadn't been battling with Black Ops.

As to your other point, I see what you mean - my only hope is that some third parties have been developing good quality traditional games and might now see the point of advertising!

Could be a lesson about all those things, or it could just be a lesson that when you base a video game off one of the most popular cartoon characters and most well known IPs of all time it's likely to do well unless you totally fuck it up, which isn't really a lesson.

and i've yet to buy the game ^^