Wii has half the amount of games coming as PS3/360

[dtewi]

mike_intellivision said:

I am tried of reading drivel that derides the "casual" market.

Wii owners like different/unique experiences. 

But how many games that (a) were not well-received and (b) were NOT first in their genre to market have done well on the Wii?

Some unusual games have done well. But only if they met this criteria (and were generally functional).

For example, everyone's favorite Carnival Games has sold 3.69M. But the imitators (Six Flags at 0.21M and Wonder World Amusement Park at 0.07M) generally tanked. Poorly received, me-too games  -- casual gamers know what not to buy.

Also, support from a big third-party does not necessarily mean success. Activision has 86 titles on the Wii. A total of 10 have sold over 1M but two dozen (24) have not sold 10K. (I own two from each category). If you look at the lower selling games, many are rueful mini-game collections or tired sequels to a game that sold well at the beginning.

In other words, what flummoxes third-parties  on the Wii is that the casual gamer actually seems to have a much more discerning pallet as they tend not to buy copy-cat games and often do not buy sequels.  This is not necessarily true on the other systems, so you can release the game two or three basic game types and know that an existing successful IP will continue to sell well.

Mike from Morgantown

All you're saying is that copy-catted shovelware doesn't sell.

Yes, Wii owners have brains, and yes, they won't buy shovelware clones.

But shovelware still sells. It's cheap to make, and by playing their cards correctly, the company can profit big time on it.

3rd parties aren't going to spend a ton of resources on some amazing game when it has a less likely chance to profit than shovelware.