I've mentioned the reason the Wii gets lackluster 3rd party support for a while, and it has yet to be disproven:
1. Casual "newbs" don't know what makes for quality gaming, and are either overwhelmed or just uninterested in hardcore 3rd party titles.
2. Nintendo fans, fanboys especially, feverishly support anything from Nintendo, no matter how trivial, crappy, or uninspired, while gleefully ignoring anything from 3rd party titles. Look at the 3DS, what's getting talked about more by the fanboys, a barely-improved Zelda title from 13 years ago, or a strong third party title, clearly intent on pushing the 3DS's strengths, such as Resident Evil Revelations? Clearly, all any fanboys talk about "yayz Ocarina of Time being re-released for the 5th time!"
The 3DS is getting the most phenominal 3rd party support of any Nintendo system since the SNES. No doubt, the fanboys will go the lengths to ruin it.
More proof? Grand Theft Auto Chinatown wars sold grossly fewer copies on the DS than pretty much any other GTA title since GTAIII was released. Meanwhile, Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories sold through 6 and 3.75 million each on the PSP.
Blue Ocean newbs and Nintendo fans tend not to buy third party games. And like I've said in the past, they'd support another cash-grab, crap-reviewed Mario Party than an original 3rd party effort averaging twice the score.
The GameCube started off with some fairly impressive 3rd party support, but the Nintendo fans took several steps to ruin that. The original Xbox barely sold more than the GameCube (24 million to 21 million), but the Xbox maintained strong 3rd party support through the end--because those gamers bought the games. Many of which were released in identical form on the PS2 and GameCube.
It all comes down to sales. Calling developers stupid is just ignorant. For one thing, that decision is usually on publishers, not developers. For another thing, they have a history of common sales that they go by: The story remained the same on the N64 and GameCube--Nintendo fans buy Nintendo titles, and tend to ignore anything else en masse, regardless of quality.
You want better 3rd party support on Nintendo systems? You actually have to buy the games. I buy the damn things. But then, I'm not some absent-minded Nintendo fan. I'm a gamer as well as a Nintendo fan.
