Meaning, he said what I wanted to say.

Lesson 1: Use licensed I.P. Check! Notice how the game sold in the U.S.  compared to the E.U where Mickey is far more popular than in Europe?

Lesson 2: Good game design is paramount no matter what innovation you want to bring to the table.

Lesson 3: Legendary game designers can do well on any game system. Hire more of them. (If you can)

Lesson 4: A game worth buying is a game worth marketing.

Lesson 5: Wii titles do well if they have important keywords like 'Party, Dance, Epic, Wii, Mario' in them. Try to make up your title with as many as reasonably possible. In this case we have 'Epic' and 'Mickey', Mickey being almost as well known as Mario these days in the U.S. sure helps.

I understand what you're saying, but if a licensed game sucks, it still won't sell.  The ones that have decent sales are the ones that are decent games, like the Simpsons Game, the Lord of the Rings games, Goldeneye (the new one and the original).  The ones that well and truly suck, or are just 'ok' don't sell as well, such as Blood Stone.

Epic Mickey is certainly helped by the second letter of its name, but it is also selling well because it has two things: advertising and quality.

I hope they learned a lesson and keep all the platformers on Wii.

Well yeah if a licensed game sucks it won't do well, that's the "don't totally fuck it up" part.  Advertising and Quality are helping it to achieve the impressive sales it's getting, but talking as though every Wii Third Party game could be a success if only it had advertising and was quality like Epic Mickey is silly because it ignores a huge reason that Epic Mickey is selling which is the brand name.

You may be right, but can you give examples of third party games that meet all the criteria set out in the OP and which have bombed regardless?

Not to seem like a jerk, but could you please elaborate because I am ignorant to this subject.

Sure use a big name IP, dont have an HD version of it as well and release during holidays and gift purchasers will have little problem purchasing as a gift for someone with a Wii.

Yes, I think third parties are taking notice but they're going to forget it all about it whenever the next third party Wii game flops. They pay more attention to the flops than the successful titles :l

 I think it more just shows how important a strong brand is at selling games on the Wii - especially when it's something like Disney and Mickey Mouse that perfectly 'fits' the Wii's family appeal and is aimed perfectly at the Wii's younger audience. I can't honestly think of a brand that fits the Wii better in all honesty.

The games quality and marketing no doubt helped push things further, I don't want to try discredit that, but in all honesty you stick Disney / mickey mouse on the title and it's gonna sell on the Wii. Toy Story Mania was the bazzlionth Wii minigame collection, and despite being another derivative 'PARTY!' game, it sits at 1.3m worldwide, because it had the brand.