Epic Mickey really can't serve as an example to the industry. The problem is, they used a genre that already has strong performance on the platform (platformer/adventure) along with a well established IP (Mickey Mouse). Many high quality third party titles only find moderate success on the Wii, when they use original ideas. No More Heroes did well enough to warrant a sequel, but it was by no means a blockbuster (~500k). It was also experimental and an all new IP. The same goes for the Conduit (sold well enough to warrant a sequel, but didn't come close to 1 million units). Of course, if you want to break away from shovelware and party game collections/dance games, you have to use a well known IP, make it family-friendly and advertise it like all-get-out. That is the only lesson to be learned, if any. Otherwise, new IP almost face certain death on the Wii, if they don't involve dancing or mini-games.
That said, most of my small Wii collection consists of 3rd party titles (Force Unleashed, Lightsaber Duels, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Epic Mickey), but even I have Nintendo and Party games (I own Disney Sing It. What can I say, I love Disney games). There really is no magical formula to figuring out the Wii. It has a non-standardized controller method and a fickle audience that is comprised of older people, non-traditional gamers (non-gamers, "casual" gamers etc) and "core" gamers. Everything is pretty much hit-or-miss.
