Shouldn't success be measured by the games?

[Bodhesatva]

There's one legitimate reason to care about sales: future trends.

If a game or console sells well, it portends more games of that ilk or more games in general on that system.

For me in particular, I've been drawn back into console gaming specifically by the burgeoning (cough) "non game" games, such as Wii Sports and Endless Ocean. Having the Wii sell well means, for my sake, more of these types of games.

Consider Halo, as another example. Consider the ramifications if Halo 1 had not sold well. Let me list them!

1) We likely wouldn't have a Halo 2 or Halo 3
2) The Xbox would have sold significant worse than it did, because Halo was clearly its flagship title
3) The Xbox 360 may not exist as a result of 2
4) We'd have significantly fewer FPS on the market, because Halo was the breakout console hit for FPS. As a great example, it's quite likely Bioshock would never have been made, because it apparently was just barely given the green light even in this FPS-hungry environment.

There are lots more, of course. But the point is that success for a game, a console, or a genre has effects on the future of gaming. That is the real reason to be concerned with sales.

Legend is absolutely correct, however, that many just turn it into some bizarre competition. It's particularly interesting to see Nintendo fans who do not like casual games gloating over the Wii's success; it's quite likely that the Wii's success will have little effect on the type of games they personally like (still some effect, as Galaxy/TP/etc. are still selling better than their counterparts on the GC thus far, thus ensuring that Nintendo's strength in these "hardcore" areas will continue to grow), but they don't seem to care as long as Nintendo is winning.