Article: When "Must-Have" Games do not sell, who is to blame?

[HappySqurriel]

ssj12 said:

HappySqurriel said:

I could be wrong, but I suspect that the general rule would be that it is the console manufacturer's responsibility to sell hardware and it is the publisher's responsibility to sell software ... This (basically) means that poor software sales on a system like the Dreamcast could be blamed on Sega's inability to move hardware, whereas poor third party software sales on the Wii could be blamed on third parties inability to produce high quality software and market it effectively.

 how about the fact that software devs should idk advertise their games. Its really sad that Burnout's advertisement is produced by Sony. 

That is part of my point ...

Every game ever produced has an associated barrier to entry to connect a consumer with this game; if the consumer owns the console it is the price of the game, if they don't own the console it is the price of the system plus the price of the game. When a system (like the Wii) has a userbase of 20 Million users you only need to convince 2.5% of owners of that system that your game is worth owning to sell 500,000 units, or 5% of users to buy your game to sell 1 Million units ... If you can't do that either your game isn't good enough or you're not marketing it well (or enough).