I realize you like the Wii, and I don't think you do it intentionally, but just read your very last post above. you keep moving the goal posts of the "this proves 3rd party core games, when done right on all fronts, can succeed on the Wii". You keep giving reasons why this or that game hasn't succeeded when it is recognized it has in regards to its niche, and keep explaining why this or that game succeeding or going to succeed proves nothing regarding how 3rd party core games can sell on the Wii, because of this or that reason...

Bottom line for me is this - from everything I am seeing, my conclusion is that all 3rd party games that did not succeed on the Wi wouldn't have done much better on the HD consoles either, given the same circumstances.

MH3, unlike Madworld and FFCC, will warrant a full price purchase. I also acknowledge it will be frontloaded somewhat, but it should sell well. However, even if it does, it will be blamed on Nintendo bundling and cross promotion.

FFCC was a mediocre and short game, and Madworld was half as short. The fact that it is selling now (after 57 weeks) more than it was two months after its release is because  it is at a price where people feel comfortable and ungyped when they buy it. For the content you get in the game, $8-$20 is what it deserves. It managed 7k this week and passed 475k

FFCC still costs full price and the game got mixed reviews everywhere. It did not do one thing exceptionally right. I would not expect many to buy that, Seeing how Square Enix advertised FF13 (fairly poorly) FFCC ads would be like selling sand to an Afghan, or water to Aquafina.

I hate the word casual, so I'll say that early stage gamers bought CoD3 because of brand name, at an even lower price (must be below $20 now right?) Why would they buy Modern Warfare Reflex when the sequel is out, or when the games should probably be exactly the same, but Reflex is more expensive. The 'experienced gamers' are not the ones still buying COD3, I'll tell you that much.

Tatsunoko vs Capcom....I have talked with you about this game before; it was never going to burst out the gate with millions. Games with years of renditions like Street Fighter or Tekken cannot pass the 1.75 million mark on a single console. The only reason the legs don't look as good is because one version of TvC came out already in Japan, not much more than a year ago. It sold about 6.5k this week BTW at full price.

RS2 has a host of commercial problems, rather than critical.

This. I find multiplayer on the Wii tends to be really fun. An good/average single player campaign... and that's all? No thanks.

By the way regarding COD3, it has recently started selling at Gamestop for $9.99 , and so it is now in Gamestop's online Wii best seller list above NSMBWii. I guess this indicates NSMBWii doesn't exactly have great legs.

I agree. I think with a couple of advertisements during the holiday season, Red Steel 2 will get some decent sales. 50,000 copies is pretty good sales for the first month. The previous title in the series sold over 100k first week WW in America.

*shrugs* it wasn't properly advertised (1 TV ad in less than a week? really?) and it has been only like what, 10 days on sale? Wii gamers are more arcade like and this game seems more cinematic which wii gamers are not very wild on it. Also Wii games doesn't follow the "Blockbuster" mentality..I am not defending it (I honestly don't care)..

..is just that after all these years these kind of threads are becoming stupid and ridiculous and should really put to sleep.

MOVE ON DAMN IT!

games like red steel should be on the PS Move xD
other than that i think Red Steel 2 should have legs. Wii games always have legs.

I think the main thing Red Steel 2 has going against it is the fact that despite being the great game that it may be, it still seems somewhat incomplete, in terms of content that is. It has an 8 hour or so campaign mode, but no multiplayer or online. This is why I think many are passing on this game. It's more of a rental, or a buy at a discount type of game, the latter of which I'm planning on doing. It's the same reason Madworld didn't sell great. Good game, but too short and limited to spend $40-50 on.

A game like MW2 may have a limited campaign mode as well, but at least it has extra features like spec ops, and of course the online to make up for it, which makes the replayability near unlimited. Like Gamerace said, a game like Monster Hunter 3 will probably do far better because its sheer amount of content. Even the first Red Steel, despite being the worse game, at least had multiplayer to add replayability and thus value to the game, which is why it will end up with far more sales than RS2. I think there's really something to say for the value gamers see in rich content and replayability. Red Steel 2 just doesn't seem to have this.

I really think the simple solution to help many core Wii games sell is to just add online, or at least additional content that adds that incentive to keep playing the game. Too few Wii games have this. But notice the ones that DO have more content generally sell far better.

@bmmb1 & SaviorX - You know I'm not actually disagreeing with anything you're saying. We're all on the same page here. I'm just shooting down what I percieved as blind faith in the 'Wii games have legs' that O-D-C was esponsing.

For reasons already mentioned I don't expect Red Steel 2 to show any real legs until it's a budget game.

However as for 3rd party success on Wii, Wii fans are setting their sights too low. Sure Conduit, Madworld, HoTD:O were all commercially successful (they made money) but none are even close a 1m. Even CoDMWR which will eventually pass 1m is a very modest success. Especially when the HD version on a comparible sized user base sold 15m.

MH3 has already proven that a AAA core game can succeed on Wii. It sold 1m+ in Japan alone. I don't expect WW sales to do more than 2m but then it's niche outside of Japan so even on HD I wouldn't expect big numbers. I'm sure DQX will do similar.

They really should have gotten Kevin Costner to do voice acting in this game.