Most of mainland Europe is Sony and PC land. 95% of gamers I know around here hate Nintendo with a passion.

The result is that, traditionally, "hardcore" gamers would rather eat glass than buying Nintendo games (they do play Metroid and Zelda, but pirate them instead of buying them).

Most retailers in The Netherlands at least, have openly admitted not to stock Wii versions of multiplatform games. Call of Duty: World at War is not carried by The Free Record Shop in Utrecht, and games like Fifa and Need For Speed are very rare as well. Even Sonic games, which sell better on Wii than on other consoles, are harder to find on Wii than on PS3 around here.

A couple of game orientated stores (like Game Mania and Nedgame) refuse to stock games like The Conduit and MadWorld. They say they don't think games like that really fit the Wii.

Seriously, I have talked with retailers around here multiple times and have always left frustrated, because it's a huge problem. Many Wii publishers have encountered this problem and cannot get retailers to order their Wii titles.

In short: gamers and retailers make it impossible for "hardcore" games to sell. As a result only casual gamers who don't know much about games get to buy their games.

The Red Steel sales are horrible but if these numbers carry over to Monster Hunter Tri then this thread should become very popular because then we would know there is a problem.

I would have to agree with this, our cable provider in the caribean gives us atleast one of each european countries stations. So far from UK's BBC(actually rule that, it's mostly news channel), Germany's DW and Netherland's BVN. I have not seen any wii ads or games in general as of yet! :s

I can also concur on the "barely no good wii games in store shelves" thing. I have friends in the Netherland saying they can't get any hardcore games in stores, let alone asking the store owner to order for them.

Wich brings forths the "wii's only for kids" mentality is a huge problem over there, I have atleast one friend over there that keeps bringing up the "no blood, no buy" thing when I talk about wii games. I even told him about MadWorld, he said he'll look into it, but I'm waiting for his opinion about it...

And what Kenoid said. ;)

Chrizum, you just concreted what I just said... And that's what I call hypocrisy, it's just sad... :(

People don't need to change, games need to.

@ Beuli2
I think Nintendo just did that with the wii, didn't they?

Well, I think the majority of people who bought a Wii are not the usual gamers, so they tend to buy the system, and the get games like Wii Play, Wii Fit, maybe some Mario Kart, but they probably don't even know what Silent Hill is. I'm Spanish, and of all the people I know who bought a Wii, only like 25% are gamers, and they own a 360 or PS3 also. Also, Spain is a "Playstation country", and a pirate country too, which also affects.

It probably varies wildly by market.  In the US, 72% of Wii owners also had/have a PS2.   Also, 42% of all HD console owners also have a Wii, while only 26% of Wii owners have a 360 and just 14% of Wii owners have a PS3.

I had a thread about this last year: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=86467

Despite the criminally low numbers, a Nintendo console has never done better in Europe. I think NOE is by far the weakest of the 3 when it comes to getting the Wii's name out there. The DS has Professor Layton to chalk up European success, but the Wii....

Sometimes the numbers may be higher than we actually think. Look at Muramasa- we had no sales for it since launch and got some earlier this week: 50k with a 2.5k debut. Others is just like America in that you have to watch games leg it out first, look at Sonic. If it is good they will buy it.

Most PS360 games have higher sales in the region, but there are a host of reasons I would prefer not to get into right not that explain why that happens.......

in europe its impossible to find all these good games and redsteel 2 werent released in all of europe yet and when you look at other hardcore wii titles numbers from europe either increase or stays at the same place eg silent hill every week its sold 4-5k and resident evil darkside chronicles started off at like 10k then went up to 12k and so on and eventually the sales go down