I think Kwaad actually has a point here (once you break through the convoluted opening statement - no offence).

The issue he's getting at is that a large number of Wii owners are not buying games as often as could be expected when comparing it to the 360 and PS3.

This has been demonstrated by comparing the two most anticipated games on the Wii and 360 respectively, which showed that Wii owners do not, on the whole, go on a buying craze for mainstream games.

This isn't really a problem for Ninty (at least at the moment) because they are making a massive profit from the sales of hardware, and the don't necessarily need 3rd party support like MS and Sony do.

What a large proportion of Wii owners seem to be doing is; buying the system for the supplied Wii Sports, title, and then maybe purchasing Wii Play and (i predict) Wii Fit.

As a personal example, i know FAR more people who own Wiis than 360s or PS3s, but they only have 1 or 2 games, almost always Sport and Play, they LOVE them. the ones who have other games don't play them very often, they purchase them almost as an experiment because they hear they're good but turn back to Sport and Play once they realise they realise the time it takes to play a full 'real' game.

There is one thing we cannot see at the moment, which could be an important factor. Due to the demand for the Wii, there is no way we can see whether there is a spike in interest or sales when new games come out. we can see that 360 and PS3 have 'system seller' games. what if the only system sellers for the Wii are 'Wii Sports' type games... firlty, there arent many of these games, so will these be the only ones that will be developed in the long run? or will the mass populous get bored of these and simply forget about the Wii when the next exciting gadget comes out?

I should also point out that i'm mid 20's and the people i know with wiis are either a little older than me from work ('super' casuals) or they own a 360 too. they play Wii when they're pissed with mates, and 360 when they're 'hardcoring' it.

anyone agree?

if u mean with pissed = drunk
i do that with hardcore games 2

^yeah, i meant drunk. Wii tennis drunk is awesome. i think. i can't really remember that night much.

is there a Wii Traffic Cones game...? i seem to remember that too...

Bundling every Wii with Wii Sports is in a way like bundling every X360 with Halo 3 from launch. What would X360 attach rates have been then for its first year? Not that high, I presume.

With the exception of North America, Nintendo is close to surpassing the Gamecube's sales in (pretty much) every market around the world ...

Now, it is unreasonable to expect that the majority of people who were buying the Gamecube for $100 to $150 are buying a Wii at $250, so it has already branched (quite heavily) into a group of gamers who did not own a Gamecube; thus I think it isn't fair to claim that these gamers "have always loved nintendo" being that they skipped an entire generation of Nintendo games which were some of the best games of all time. These 'new' gamers are comming from somewhere, and most likely it is a combination of XBox, PS2 and gamers who didn't own a previous generation system; this means that they are expanding their market and potentially the market as a whole. In many ways the Wii may have a much smaller market for big name Nintendo games because people who didn't buy a Gamecube are probably less interested in Mario than people who did buy a Gamecube.

Realistically speaking, there are (at least) twice as many people who are interested in the Wii than have currently purchased it but are waiting for it to be $200, $150 or $100; at the end of this generation the Wii will (probably) have outsold every previous Nintendo home console and this is why I think it is unreasonable to expect that it is being sold only to Nintendo fans.

Another factor not yet mentioned here for lower attach rates are the relationship between casual players and VC games.

I consider myself a casual player, but my son is more hardcore. I do play on the Wii and once my son eventually goes to university I'll get one of my very own. However, while I have purchased Tiger Woods and RE4, I've only played maybe 5 hours of each. I do not generally have more than a few minutes here or there to spend playing games. So the vast bulk of my gameplay is in 5-10 minute spurts and games that accommodate that.

Wii Sport, Wii Play, Mercury Meltdown and a bunch of VC titles. I also waste a lot of time on the channels.

I'm sure I'm not alone in that respect, in fact many former gamers are now simply too busy with wives, kids, jobs, etc. to play Halo or Zelda like we once did. However a quick game of Galaxian or Donkey Kong are great.

So if casual owner buy Wii play and then mostly just VC titles, does that make the console doomed?!? I think not. Is it bad for 3rd party support? In a traditional sense, yes, but there's money to be made for sure and 3rd parties will be sure to grab their share if it's through casual games (MySims), VC releases or WiiWare titles.