There's actually a sub niche within the "core" niche on the Wii, or any Nintendo console. It's essentially those who are the biggest fans of Nintendo IPs, going all the way back to the 80s. When someone follows a franchise for that long, that's going to result in a pretty hard core following.

If Nintendo IPs are your favorites, naturally your first and last words in gaming will be Nintendo and whatever consoles they are currently supporting.

And like you said, just as Nintendo fans gravitate towards Nintendo consoles for 1st party games, there really hasn't been a huge reason to use the Wii as the primary platform for 3rd party games, unless you're either that tickled by the Wii Remote or you don't have any other gaming platforms.

The Wii just isn't the best platform for the vast majority of 3rd party IPs out there. That's more or less been the case since the transition from the Super NES to the N64.

I think you'd be changing your tune about Valve had they made a port of Portal for the Wii. Or if they announced Portal 2 for the Wii.

I would have bought a Portal port for the record. Of course it probably would have seen the lowest sales of any platform, which would have bought back the claim that it wasn't an AAA title on the Wii due to lack of development/port dollars and marketing.

As for the AAA games, the only AAA games on Nintendo platforms by ANY definition have been by Nintendo since they lost their status as the premiere home for 3rd party console games. That was in the N64 era. Get bitter about it if you want, but that's just how things stand. The Wii didn't change anything in that respect, sales aside.

You still seem to be clinging to this notion that if several (one or two examples wouldn't make a trend) developers put forth massive budgets and marketing efforts, they'd see instant success, when there's literally nothing to support this.

There were titles that were supposed to be AAA titles like HV's Conduit. And no, I don't think they are even A level developers, any more than I think Conduit was even a A level game, but their PR and hype over Conduit would have a lot of people think so. They did the best they could both in terms of marketing and as a developer. All their eggs were in the Wii basket after all.

Wii has it's Monster Hunter. Dead Space and RE brought high profile IPs to the Wii. And yes, they were not what made either franchise successful, but they used what the Wii had: pointer and motion controls.

And while plenty of Wii fans asked for it, I'd put money on the notion that an RE5 Wii port using the RE4 Wii engine would have been by far the least selling version of any platform.

But of course that wouldn't matter since "it cost less to make."

I really don't think most Wii gamers go "meh, this game is made by a third party, so I'm not gonna buy it." I'm pretty sure many of them don't even don't the concept of a third party. If it's a good enough game that appeals to their interest, it shouldn't matter whether or not Nintendo made the game. The fact is that Nintendo is simply the developer that "gets" the audience the most, and makes the most quality games that appeal to Wii gamers. I guess you could say there is also the factor of Nintendo having established IPs that are already known and loved, but at the same time, look at games like Wii Fit and Wii Sports - new ips but major hits.

If Wii Fit wasn't made by Nintendo but was the same quality, I'm pretty sure the game could have gotten near the same success. People bought Wii Fit because it looked like a fun, quality game that did something different, not because Nintendo made it. Most 3rd party Wii games just don't have these qualities.

Look at games like Just Dance, Carnival Games, Guitar Hero, etc. These are games made by third parties, yet they have sales in the millions.

I have to agree that at this point the 'general' upmarket on Wii is pretty damn small.  Maybe 1-2m if that.   Then there's the Nintendo fans who will buy any Mario, Zelda and likely DKC game who I'd peg at around 6-7m.    

Now Nintendo is great at creating cross appeal so a game like Mario Kart or NSMB can sell over 10m.  But so far 3rd parties have had virtually no luck creating cross-over appeal.   Largely it's because they are missing Mario, or any other brand that people associate with 'fun' rather than 'gamer's game'.            There's been some excellent attempts.  The recent Prince of Persia is one.  It's a solid game, rated better than it's HD counterparts, tons of content, looks great and has been designed specifically for Wii, makes great use of Wii controls and is more accessible than most games.   But how does a casual Wii owner know it's more accessible to play?   They won't unless they read review sites which they don't.   NHL Slapshot is another great attempt at making a rock-solid upmarket game with cross-over appeal which seems to be failing. Tatsunoko Vs Capcom is another, although it did better than Capcom expected it's sales are far from impressive.

That's not only a 3rd party problem either, Nintendo has the same problem.  Look at M:oM.  It's a more accessible game than the Prime series (by returning to it's 2D roots and simply gameplay mechanics) but it's sales are terrible.  Clearly they were hoping for more retro and cross-over appeal but in this case it seems to have back-fired.

Despite some great advertising MH3 failed to entice the casuals to buy and wasn't compelling enough to pull the upmarket away from their HD games.  And pretty much all upmarket Wii owners own an HD system at this point.

Really at this point, I'd say except for a brand like CoD or GTA which could entice 70 % of Wii's upmarket to buy, it's just too small to bother with.   Goldeneye and NBA Jam are clearly hoping their retro appeal will appeal to many Nintendo fans, tapping into that 6-7m market and NBA Jam will likely have some cross-over appeal due to it's arcade roots.   Kirby should do well enough.  Any other upmarket games, despite however good they are, I'd expect to flop.

You spend or are willing to spend lots of time and energy learning and playing video games; complex games, controls, and concepts are not a turn-off, and in fact are often welcomed. 

I'm assuming you're trolling and calling Little Big Planet a glorified level editor, then?

That's...incredibly unlikely, and if it is then the gaming core will probably be such a minute niche that it will have become irrelevant.

I don't want to be mean here, but I'm deeply interested in hearing you explain yourself, because it sounds very much like you have no idea what the terms you're tossing about actually mean.

I'm curious to hear what makes you question the possibility that a corporation's officers are willing to hamper the corporation (of which they own little or nothing) for their own short-term gain?

Obvious problem:  the Wii has already sold more systems than any previous Nintendo home console, especially the Gamecube and N64.   This makes it impossible for tens of millions of consumers to have learned a lesson from a system which they never owned.

In Rol's opinion, Other M is likely a "Nintendo title" even though it was farmed out to a third party developer. Plus, the fact that it didn't sell like one of the bigger Nintendo franchises, despite being one of their biggest core gamer franchises, means it just wasn't marketed with enough money or properly or both and therefore, not an AAA title, since successful marketing is apparently a big chunk of what makes an AAA title an AAA title.

The Conduit was for all intents and purposes a B level title developed by a B level developer, hyped and marketed as a AAA level title that would crack open the third party market on the Wii. Plenty of Nintendo fans believed it.

If it had sold millions of copies, it would (guaranteed) currently be used as a shining example of how original, exclusive, successful third party IPs have a home on the Wii and that everyone else other than HV, simply have their collective thumbs up their butts and need to get with the program. 

But that didn't happen.

Madworld may have actually cost a lot more than what a lot of the apologists want to believe. I'm not sure I'd say that it qualifies as a "AAA" title, but there really isn't any arguing that the developers believed in their product and did everything they could to put out something different, new and exclusive for the Wii audience.

And the Wii audience basically took a dump on it.

Anyway, I don't see much point in making excuses for why certain games don't resonate with the general Wii audience. It is what it is.

Of those titles, Carnival Games was the only platform exclusive. And that's probably *not* the example Nintendo fans would want to use as a model for what developers should make more of for them (and sell enough titles to make it worth their while). 

Just Dance, Rock Band, Guitar Hero and the like do well on all platforms and in the case of the Wii, provides the least "drop" in experience in terms of visual quality when comparing ports. Can't do much about the resolution output of the Wii, but if resolution is ever used as an argument for "quality" then that pretty much means the ridiculous notion that the quality of EVERYTHING on the Wii (including all Nintendo titles) are lacking, which is obviously bollocks.

This was a good read but I think there is another reason for this. Has anybody ever considered that the Wii with its new controller interface and its promise of doing things different naturally attracts those people who are least likely to buy tradiditional "hardcore" games?

I'm not talking about "lol casuals" but people who have played a lot of games in their life but aren't interested in putting that much effort into this anymore.

Really the only thing videogames are better at than other mediums is "providing fun". If you're a regular reader of books (good books!) the "story" in an RPG will just make you laugh so that's not a reason to invest hours into a game. If you're regularly watching movies there is no need to buy a game for a "cinematic experience" because you don't have to invest 50$ to get that experience with a movie.

The one thing videogames are better at is providing fun, either when you're alone or with other people. There is nothing in the world of entertainment that can compete with playing a videogame in co-op. And no that doesn't include Gears of War or online co-op because 70% of the worlds population are not going to play a bloody shooter with you.

So basically the Wii attracts those people who are least likely to play those "hardcore" games not because people are "too stupid" to play them (honestly, everyone can play a hardcore game with 1 hour of practice, people just don't want to) but because they are not interested. So why would they buy such a game?

There is no debate.

Ask anyone who isn't a forum dweller and they will tell you...

"I get the Nintendo/Mario games and stuff, but the Wii doesn't really have any good games." - Common person

The 3rd party games are terrible and terribly advertised, period. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. 98% of all Wii 3rd party titles have been made by the worst of teams with the worst of intentions.

This is not overexaggeration or hyperbole, it is absolute fact. I've been looking at the Wii getting dicked of good games for 4 years now and this is the inconvenient truth.

3rd parties don't want to support the console. On the PS3/360, they have free reign- Sony & MS first parties presence is fairly minimal so the inmates run the asylum. On the Wii, they would have to actually pull of something somewhat original and not have to rely on graphcial fidelity alone to get their poorly constructed game concepts out there. I own all the consoles and I enjoy every one of them, but all these "hardcore games" that people swear by and jerk off to are just trashy games in shiny clothing.

To end it here I will reiterate, 3rd parties have been near worthless on the Wii. If their games were good, people would buy their games like they buy the Nintendo ones. Name your favorite "AA-AAA" 3rd party Wii games and I can give you the laundry list of careless flaws behind them all.

I would like to see DQX and FFvXIII go PS3/Wii multiplat so we could see the split. SB3 sold significantly better on PS3, and the year old ToG is looking like it will outsell the Wii version as well. I would be very interested to see how the split for big multiplatform games would look like. I would also like to see other big 3rd party games be multiplat day one. MH3G, SW3:E, KH3, NiNoKuni, etc..