It takes two years to make 'core' games so you have to figure alot of their internal teams are working on DS2/Super Wii games.
You have to figure alot of Wii/DS projects started in late 2002-2005...then there is/was a second wave. After that the focus is on the next set of platforms. With a $10b or $20b warchest Nintendo has it can commission tons of talented small developers to use its highly marketable characters to fill the gaps.
The only change with Wii is that the best selling games actually take the least time to make (Wii Fit/Wii Sports/Wii Play/Wii Sports Resort) and sell the best.
Also, looking back histrorically, Nintendo seems to make all kinds of abstract stuff when it has a big user base.
NES sold 62m consoles...you got Mario/Duck Hunt/Zelda/Punchout/Metroid/Kid Icarus/RPGS/Action Games/Fighters out of that
SNES sold 49m. What was really innovative came out at the end - Earthbound, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario RPG, Yoshi's Island, Star Fox when the base got about as big as what NES had in ~1991
N64 - 33m sold. Less innovation - again it came at the end - Majora's Mask, Conker, Sin & Punishment. Mario 64 is the one big exception.
GC - 22m sold. Innovation at the start (Pikmin/Eternal Darkness/Animal Crossing) but not much else that was.
With Wii, Nintendo has seen sales strong enough to see huge innovations, hence Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Play, and the recently announced stuff for Japan, things like Disaster/the water game/Wii Music/Captain Rainbow etc
With Nintendo there seems to be a very correlation between innovation and a big user base.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
