3rd party Wii games are doing fine!

[cringer8]

ookaze said:
Zack and Wiki (ugh, let's stay with Takarajima Z)... Takarajima Z is somewhat of a special case.
It had poor production value, because Capcom thought that it would not sell a lot.
They clearly said so, and never expected much from it. Then, "some" US reviewers played some of it, fell in love with it, and went on advertising it like it was a very good game.
Perhaps it is so, and Capcom couldn't pass on the free advertising, so they let it go, especially since they didn't plan to do any advertising themselves.
I've looked at this strange phenomenom, where people actually forgot about Capcom expectations, and went straight with what the reviewers said like it was the truth : Takarajima Z being an AAA game with huge production value, that should sell millions. Perhaps the views were skewed by the fact that the reviewers launched a "campaign" to advertise the game.
Anyway, I don't trust reviewers, and always thought this was plain wishful thinking, so I was not surprised at all when it "flopped". And I'm sure Capcom is not surprised either, as they knew it.
And I'm sure Capcom gives more credits to their analysts than to game reviewers regarding how they'll sell. I think Capcom made a profit on the game too.

You're wrong.  A lot.

No reviewer claimed that the game was a AAA title with huge production value.  And no reviewer claimed it would sell millions.  You're stretching the truth.  IGN liked the game because of the gameplay and the difficulty of the puzzles.  They started their campaign because they knew it wouldn't sell well.  They wanted to make sure that other developers wouldn't be scared of trying something different on the Wii.  Point and click adventure games work very well with the Wii remote.  I hope the mediocre sales don't scare developers from making more of them.

Also, no developer or publisher uses money and manpower to create something they expect to fail.  That's just stupid.  Companies don't spend money for fun.  They're in it for profits.  They may not expect millions of sales, but they certainly expect a profit.

And finally, you clearly haven't played the game.  I have.  The reviews of this game were dead on.  I consider it to be the most original and challenging game on the Wii.  I liked it even better than SMG (which I found to be a "walkthrough" game [way too easy]).