An aspect of what I was talking about had been that when you see PS3 or 360 games advertised, they are showing graphics, and pushing raw horsepower.  With the Wii (and also DS) I don't see this.  What I see is games that seem to hold up later in the life cycle, as they have earlier.

The wii is more powerful than you think fanboy

Maybe the Wii exclusives? Yes, that games that only sees at Wii?

Ex: Zelda Wii, The Last Story, Metroid Other M, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Monster Hunter Tri, No More Heroes 2, Xenoblade, Red Steel 2, Epic Mickey, The Conduit 2, Tatsonuko vs Capcom.

Even the hd have motion control, high voltage is making The Grinder for wii a fps exclusive, and not a fps for the hd.

How much to PS3 and 360 owners really care about graphics? I don't mean the vocal group online. Just assuming because they have the systems it's because of the graphics, and not the games that happen to have graphics, is a correlation=causality fallacy.

As in did people buy Gears and Modern Warfare for the pretty graphics, or for something else? Something that the Wii games the reviewers hate might have, just not with the graphics?

GRAPHICALLY, it isn't as powerful, or in the same class as the 360 or PS3.  That is a reality.  What I was saying here is that the Wii is likely near maxed out here, so that anything coming out will look about as it does now, as games a few years from now.  So, you aren't getting a lot more on the graphics front.  Also, the Wii doesn't compete against the PS3 and 360 on graphics, and if anyone really cared about graphics first, they wouldn't be buying a Wii to begin with.  What I see from Nintendo is that they produce a title like Mario Kart for the Wii and it likely will be the only Mario Kart on the Wii, and still hold up later in the life cycle.  If they do a revision, it isn't to up the graphics, but to maybe add more features.  Or, in the case of Zelda, not be a game that was primarily developed for the last Nintendo home system.

Anyhow, people have spoken, and graphics aren't as relevant to what people want as the industry was betting on... outside of Nintendo.  Also art direction > raw horsepower.

Ideally, both good game design (such as was referenced with Okami and Muramasa) and good graphics should go hand in hand.  And even on the Wii, they are.  Most of what are considered the 'best' games quite clearly have that.  From Mario Galaxy to Monster Hunter Tri to Muramasa, they not only were some of the best games graphically from a technical sense, but they also had some of the most unique style that set them apart from other games on the Wii.  But not only that, these games also set the benchmark for future games in their genre.  2D action/platformers will have a hard time surpassing Muramasa and even the HD consoles are going to have a hard time surpassing Monster Hunter Tri with a MMO Action title with such fluid style.  Probably won't happen until Monster Hunter on 360.

It's easier to compete on the HD consoles. You just need to push more polygons on the screen.

On the Wii, you actually have to have the gameplay and everything else to make it successful.

Plus, who would want to develop for a kiddy console and have it look funny on the resume?

I haven't thought of it that way.

It makes a lot of sense, really.

What did the PS2 have over the GameCube and Xbox?

That's right, the games.... whatever you all may think, the Wii is selling because of it's games, Nintendo is a big part of that alone (as could be seen when sales slowed down last year) and a much bigger part than it should be thanks to some publishers and developers, but overall people prefer the Wii games library over the PS3 or X360 (though not quite both)

I know I do.

Great thread, I think the reason the wii games sell so much is because of the age old nintendo selling point.....accessibility. A mario game can be played by a five year old or a 50 year old and still be classed as fun. The learning curve for wii games is not steep for the most part. (Zack and wiki begs to differ). For the HD twins, that is not the case.

I have noticed a thrend throughout every console generation. The console with the worst graphics comes out first in the end. It has always been the case. Sony were kings at this, their consoles were the worst graphically but they sold the most due to accessiblity of games and a wide variety of genres. Wii has a tremendous amount of variety and thats why it keeps selling, it looks great, its cheap and most of all has the most popular video game character of all time, mario.