Surely most people buy it because they're prepared to gamble £5 on a mini-game collection. To suggest it's because the games strike a nostalgic chord with people is a bit teleological - most people buying the game probably don't know much about what's in it before playing.

The game is easily worth what you pay for it, that is why it is awesome and why the review system is bunk.
Wiiware games seem to get high enough scores... why? some of them are more expansive and have less content than Wii Play.... hell some full priced party games don't have much more to them than Wii Play.

I spent a good 25 hours on Wii Play, some of it was awkward, boring or average (respectively Fishing, Find Mii and Pose Mii) but the rest of it easily makes up for it.
Madworld is for some reason rated highly by a lot of reviewers, a full price game that lasts all of 5 hours? Combining shooting, 9-ball and laser hockey alone I had more fun with Wii Play, and am glad I only paid £3.87 for Madworld (though as I sold it for £3, it only cost me £0.87.... and I would still not claim it to be my best bargain buy)

I can't say the games score should be higher on Metacritic or any junk like that, clearly reviewers thought the game average, which it is, but it's also cheap... and value matters. People can complain the game lacks depth all they want, but don't complain about it's sales because for it's price it is a better buy than many £50 games.

i refuse to accept that this is gonna be the best selling game of all time

man this game has to be that cheap to make i wonder how much $ nintendo made for this game?

I don't care what that article says about Pong and Tanks. I bought Wii Play because it was a cheap game that came with a Wii-Remote. If it were $10 by itself, I wouldn't have touched it. Nintendo used trickery and lured me into buying it.

And the journalist that wrote the article said "This answer it to simple" instead of "too simple".

"Look, it contains games that tenths of millions of people used to love long before video games went 3D."

I say it has to do with the fact that it comes with a controller.

If it didn't come with one I am sure people would have just passed it by.

I say the bundle helped avoid the game not selling, but didn't make it sell so much.

Bundled controller does the trick.

Also the Tank game is pure playable cocaine. Addictive as hell in multiplayer.

not true. It sells for $8-10 used on e-bay/amazon. If you sell it near Christmas you can get $12-13. Considering you are buying the game for $10 it actually goes up in value if you sell it at the right time of year. Gamestop sells it for $15.

source - videogamepricecharts.com