Here's the deal. I own a Wii, have several games, but truth be told, WiiSports is good enough for most folks. Look at the Wii numbers - Mario sells, WiiPlay sells, but that's really it. Developers are down to make loot. And using last-gen technology to make games is easier than using multi-million-dollar budgets for games that the Wii crowd *may* not buy. Look at MP3. It was doing good, but not awesome. And that's a 1st party title!

Even as popular as the Wii is, it is really a risky venture for developers. If it's not Mario or offer a free remote, it's the luck of the draw.

I do believe that this is a matter of audience. A Factor 5 developer once said that he had no problems in making a graphically spectacular games but when asked why no one is doing it, he said something along the point "I think publishers are telling their developers: Look, we're not paying you to make pretty games for the Wii, just make it so it's playable." Publishers realized that they can shove crap on the Wii and people will buy it so what's the motivation to make a high budget game? With the PS3/360/PC, it's a little different. If publishers release a poor looking game there, they know that it will never sell because of the audience's high demand for pretty graphics. They do what's safe to increase the sales of the games of the other platforms: polish the graphics and ensured better quality. However, I do believe that the Wii's success in 2008 and the rise of high quality games from Nintendo will force them to step up production value. However, it's just not happening right now.

Yeah, Ubisoft definately made the worst decision in the world - release 2 Wii games that sell under 1.2m worldwide, only to betray them and release Assassain's Creed, which obviously bombed.

Your game example(s) are the worst ever. Any given one of those PS3/X360 games is a million seller, whereas many of those Wii games had horrible sales. Doesn't that obviously show you why they're doing PS3/X360 games intstead?


This thread fails for lack of intelligence.

The only game that bombed on your list is Medal of Honor. Most games on that list were already planned for the 360 and PS3 before the Wii launched. Some of them haven't been released, so how could they have bombed? 

 MP3 made a profit. Lair didn't. Equally hardcore games; but at least the Wii game was profitable.

You just compared a first party title for the Wii with a third party title for the PS3.

You don't even have to use Lair, there are much better PS3 games (both 1st and 3rd party) which didn't make a profit, while most or all Wii games (both 1st and 3rd party) have turned a profit so far.

 Oh yes? Lair, Unreal Tournament and HS were guaranteed million sellers, weren't they?

MGS4 has to sell one million copies on day one to break even. "Bombing" would be a mere 800,000 on day one. Do you see a problem with that?

No one has ever heard of Metroid and Nintendo advertised it as if it wasn't their game; Lair was over-hyped by Sony as if it was first-party. What's the difference? Fail == Fail.

 Yes but Lair sucked completely. Of course if it was on the Wii, then it would have worked better (although apparantly there are other problems) but Factor 5 took the decision (and picked up some of Sony's money probably?) to put it on PS3, and then they did not make a good game