Ok, start a business and take the strategy of "the customer is a moron, I am right!" and see how long you last. If the customer wants a product, particularly a $50 video game or $200 console enough to spend their money on it, then they obviously want it, and that product is doing something right.

Yes, the first rule of business IS profit. And how do you profit? By making products that the most people like..

What other measure of success and quality of video games is there besides sales? You may think MGS4 is the best game ever, but i may think it's awful. I may love Galaxy 2, you may think it's an insult to gaming. "Quality" in games is relative, sales is defined and measurable. And you get more sales by listening to what the consumer wants, and doing more of that.

Why would 3rd party developers put that effort in when, historically since the N64, even quality games are ignored en masse by the Nintendo "gamers?"  The games definitly do not get sales equal to the amount of effort on Nintendo systems.  It's why third party games--straight ports--always perform better on other systems.  The last generation is a perfect example, the GameCube (which I love, by the way) received a great many of the same cross-platform games as the Xbox and PS2.  Almost without fail, those games would be of comparable quality, and always sold the worst on the GameCube, with the exception of Soulcalibur II which, sadly, only sold well on the GameCube because it pandered to the Nintendo fanboys with Link. 

Since the N64 era when Nintendo alienated most 3rd party companies, third party games struggled with Nintendo systems.  The GameCube should have reversed this trend, but the Nintendo fans decided they didn't care about the Princes of Persia, the Splinter Cells, the Medals of Honor or the Calls of Duty.  Hell, even games originally released as GameCube exclusives were treated better by gamers when they went multiplatform.  Resident Evil 4, anyone?  Sold better on the Playstation 2.  What's even worse about the GameCube situation, is that it had the worst main-series Mario game (Sunshine), and the easiest and lamest Zelda game (Wind Waker).  With Nintendo releasing new lows from their first party works, one would think that some decent attention would be given to the third party titles.  At least we got Eternal Darkness out of it.  But again, for some reason, Nintendo fans ignored that one too. 

Red Steel 2, No More Heroes 2, MadWorld, and Silent Hill all received high marks from reviewers--quality games--and what was the outcome of this third party support?  Lower and lower sales.  The "regular gamers" have essentially abandoned the Wii and the Nintendo fans don't care about anything that isn't from the Big N itself.

I hate to lump all Nintendo fans in with this, since traditionally, that's exactly what I am.  But I've never been "just about Nintendo" games.  I can't even stand Pokemon and don't own a single title in that hideous series.  The vast, vast, vast majority of my games on my Nintendo systems are 3rd party, but going by sales and the gradually decreasing support of 3rd party companies, I'm a minority when it comes to Nintendo fans.

Yeah, Nintendo fans get all pissy and just make the blanket statement that "3rd party games on the system are always terrible anyway."  A game may only score a 7/10 on the Wii and the Nintendo fans decry it as pure crap, meanwhile, The Force Unleashed, despite the score, is outselling the the Wii version everywhere else.  The two Wii Resident Evil shooters aren't perfect, but they aren't crap.  Nintendo fans ignore them and act like they're just crap.  Personally, I enjoyed both of those a helluva lot more than lame Gears of War-ish RE5.  At least on the Wii, we knew to expect shooters, with RE5, I was actually expecting more than that, but that was mostly what it was (with, by the way, the worst boss battles in franchise history).

Games that score 60, 70, or 80% on any other system often are still playable and garner sales.  These exact same games on a Nintendo system are dismissed by Nintendo gamers as "3rd party crap with no respect for Nintendo gamers" which is a gross elitist attitude.  Again, we have Star Wars: The Force Unleashed which typically garnered the same scores across the board (PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, X360) in the range of 68~72%.  The Wii version was outsold by the Xbox360 and PS3 versions, and it sold only a little more than the PS2 version.  That idea that "3rd party companies just put crap on Nintendo systems" doesn't fly with this. 

One thing I often pointed out was how a quality game on the GameCube, such as Prince of Persia pale in comparison to mediocre cookie-cutter crap like Mario Party 5-7 on the thing.  Why did a quality title like Prince of Persia bomb in sales, but purile crap like Mario Party sold like blockbusters?  Nintendo fans. 

Why then, would 3rd party companies even want to bother with Nintendo systems?  They complain about 3rd party companies releasing "crap," but buy even worse crap in record numbers when Nintendo's name is slathered across it.

It is clear that Nintendo selling gangbuster is because they don't give what the customers want.

The Wii has 80, count them, 80 games that have sold a million. Many of those are 3rd party..If you sell 1 million copies on a platform, you're usually doing pretty good. Also, keep in mind that it's a mere fraction of the cost to develop Wii games as opposed to HD games, so those games HAVE to sell a lot more to make the money back.

What games do you believe on Wii deserve sales that hasn't gotten them? I challenge you to name ONE game. I promise you, that game will have either gone platinum, or else it has an extremely niche appeal or is downright crap.

Monster Hunter Tri, Call of Duty: Reflex, Resident Evil 4, are a few of the very rare cases of 3rd parties actually making quality games with large appeal (as in, giving it the care and quality they put in an HD game), and surprise! they have all crossed 1 million, and two of these are ports!

If you can find ONE legitimate Wii 3rd party game that you feel truly deserves great sales (in terms of quality AND mass market appeal) and did not recieve them, I will take back all I said.

Please... MadWorld wouldn't have done much better on the HD consoles. It is a niche game doomed to failure. It is also an extremely short game; I beat it in like 4 hours, with no online or extra features to really add replay value. It's essentially a great $10 game, that only appeals to a small percentage of gamers.

No More Heroes 2 should not be a surprise. It's a Suda 51 game, and those tend to fail regardless of the console. It is similar to Madworld in that it has a limited appeal.

Ubisoft wrote the death sentance on Red Steel 2 when they axed multiplayer/online functionality, and limited it to motion plus exclusive. Despite the fact that it may be a better game than RS1, RS1 had a very important feature; multiplayer. This added value to the game, and is the main reason I believe got far more sales than its predecessor, despite being the worse game. There's nothing wrong with a short campaign, but without a multiplayer/online feature to offset that, the game quickly becomes mainly a rental or a game you buy and sell back shortly after.

COD: Reflex has been recieving strong sales for Wii.. Why do you think this is? It's because of the online and the greater depth of content. The main problem with Wii 3rd party games lies in the lack of content.

I wouldn't call 3rd party developers mad,  I think disappointed would be more accurate.

The only people that are mad would be Wii consumers that desire more "core" games.

There is also the other side of the coin where PS360 gamers say that games like Muramasa and TvC didn't sell well even though their developers have said that they're pleased with the sales. These gamers seem to be upset that the wii got a good 3rd party game that their console didn't, saying that these types of games would have sold millions more on the PS360.

Consumers never have the fault of a product don't selling if they don't want it it's not their fault. There are 40 million 360 out there but only 11.01 m of halo 3 is it consumers fault that halo hasn't sold 40m? There are a lot of factors that contribute to sells so it's stupid to think something can sell just because is good for you, i hate FPS genre the only FPS i have ever owned was perfect dark (007 was wood to) is it my fault not liking this genre? If you can't sell something to a consumer and you say it's his fault you are mental, what you should be doing is thinking what this consumers want. 

So your black and white ultra violent 5 hours long game didn't sell so well (if you consider .50m bad sales) so what should you do? Maybe it was too short, maybe the art style didn't appeal the consumers, maybe you cant replace replay value with ultra violence. Thats how it works.   

1) First where are the numbers of those games on Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox, from what you are saying everything below 1 m doesn't perform well for you but only 2 prince games have cross that mark (sands of time and warrior within on ps2) but i can't find the Gamecube numbers so as you referred to them i think you have them, also yeah RE4 sold better on the PS2 does that makes it's performance on the GC bad? I don't think so, i mean a lot of games perform better on 360 than they do on PS3 and and vice versa. 

Also for me sunshine was a good game but wind waker is one of the best in the series, that shows again it's all about preferences and what someone think is good others think is shit. And again where are Eternal Darkness numbers i don't think it performed that well but again a don't have the numbers.

2) It has been mentioned here but:

MadWorld: Too short (why buy it if you can rent it and finish it in one sit), black and white comic art style (yeah because thats what sale games isn't it? I like the comic feel but hate the black and white) , ultra violent (because some ultra violent games sell well doesn't mean all will do) and still it sold 0.5m that isn't a bad number.

NMH2: I have this game and i love it but i must admit it again too short (but at least was more fun that MadWorld IMO), ultra violent and as Madworld don't take a lot of advantage from the wii mote (yeah you make the finishing moves and recharge) and it's showing some legs.

Red steel 2: A lot of people bought the first one and didn't like it so that may have kill some sells, i haven't play this one so i can't say a lot about it.

Silent Hill: Have you look at the silent hill sales as a franchise? Silent Hill (PS): 0.30, Silent Hill origins: 0.03, Silent Hill 4 (XB): 0.18, Homecoming (PS3): 0.23 (funny the wii one made 0.23 almost better that all of this on the ultra hardcore consoles) so what do you have to say about this?

3) Again you don't like pokemon so you don't buy it, i didn't liked MadWorld so i didn't  buy it i rented it.

4) At least for me i don't guide my purchases because a bad review, if i have doubts of a game i rent it if the game is worth the purchase then i buy it for example: Overkilled, Prince of Persia forgotten sands (wii) and yes even nintendo games, NSMBW (i thought it could be too short so i rented it and then buy it) but then again there are some games that don't justify 50 dollars (in my country they sell them at 70-100 dollars) for example MadWorld and of course The force unleashed, i don't know if you have ever played the wii version but it's horrible: a lot of bugs, horrible control, too short (again mmm this is becoming a pattern) and no replay value, so tell me why should i purchase that game. And that game sold just a little less that the PS3 version 1.47 vs 1.58 so that don't justify the "3rd parties don't sell on wii".

It's funny you mention the on-rails shooters there are 5 on-rails shooters on the wii, 2 of them are 1m sellers 2 of them are over 0.5m and just one of them under that number. The first tow on-rail shooters HotD and RE:UC 1.19 and 1.38 respectively, then Overkilled, Darkside and dead space and they did worst couldn't that be market saturation? Look at guitar hero first on the wii 3 make 1 million better that world tour and world tour did 2 million better that 5 so it must be wii's fault that GH5 just did 1m isn't it? Lets look at 360 sells: GH3 did almost 2m better that world tour and world tour did more that 2m better that GH% (that haven't even reached 1m btw) so i think if there's a next on-rails its gonna sell even less not wii's fault not consumers fault (as you say) it's saturation.

5)  "Games that score 60, 70, or 80% on any other system often are still playable" stop right there. So you are saying playable? Are you serious if a game is "playable" it doesn't deserve a purchase a game must be more that playable it's like saying "shit is eatable so why don't more people eat shit" or " well a guy is fuckable so why don't heterosexual guys fuck him" nintendo gamers aren't elitists they just don't like using their money to buy a bad game.

 Also you mentioned again force unleashed i have give you my thoughts about the game but now you say "it sold only a little more than the PS2 version" well if you think 0.38 (PS2-Wii) a little more you should think 0.11 (PS3-Wii) a little more to.

6) Again i don't know the numbers so i don't know if PoP bombed on the Gamecube but a good party game selling more that a single player one doesn't surprise me and both games are good but i agree with you that PoP was a grate game.

7) Tell me which crap with nintendo name on it i mean yeah mario party 8 wasn't that good but what other title are you talking about?     

What people tend to forget is that basically all Wii games that apparently 'bombed' would have done the exact same or maginally better, despite costing a hell of a lot more to develop on 360/PS3

Also, some games are niche and therefore only appeal to a smaller userbase.  Take the vanilaware games for example, Muramasa is only slightly behind on the sales of Odin Sphere, despite Muramasa being released on the 'rubbish at selling core software Wii' while Odin Sphere on the 'King of software sales' PS2.  Oh and don't forget the massive cock up that was Muramasa's release here in the UK (many major stores refused to stock it).