After reading the following can you really blame third-parties for the games they're making for the Wii?
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23400
GamePlan: MadWorld Demonstrates Tenuous Link Between Web Hype And Sales
by Chris Remo
April 29, 2009
There has been a great deal of speculation about the underwhelming retail performance of PlatinumGames' MadWorld, but now OTX research group GamePlan Insights has released detailed data illustrating the often-thin correlation between online acclaim and real-world retail success, particularly on the Wii platform.
As demonstrated by GamePlan's Nick Williams at the Los Angeles Game Conference, with slides made available to Gamasutra, the game's strong awareness among the hardcore online gaming community bore little relationship with its weak awareness among the wider gaming public.
For example, from January to March, the tracking metrics used by major consumer gaming site IGN.com pegged the bloody brawler as the Wii game with the highest level of unique interest, and by extension purchase intent.
(Sega, MadWorld's publisher, did make the top ten with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. And there is generally encouraging news for third parties: Only one Nintendo-published title made the cut, Wii Sports Resort at number one.)
But GamePlan's data from the same period, polling gamers across different demographics, placed MadWorld at a dismal number 41. The company says it surveys 1,000 gamers on a weekly basis, tracking 400 games at any given time.
According to the firm's research, the ten Wii games with the highest purchase intent were exclusively music games, casual sports games, and puzzle games, with the only exception being LucasArts' Star Wars: The Clone Wars -- Lightsaber Duels.
(more at the link)
