Tetris is the ultimate low-budget game. Other similar games like Lumines come to mind.

Anyone ever play Starscape? It's a PC game that I think they were trying to bring to the Xbox. Dunno if they ever succeeded in that.

How about Serious Sam? This one did make it to the Xbox, and the Gamecube I think too. Definitely a low-budget title, and an absolute blast because it was actually different from every other FPS out there.

Pikmin can't have cost that much to make. Nor Super Monkey Ball.

Hey, I realize that none of these games are for everyone, but then neither is Halo.

With ease of development, large installed base, and users who seem to love 'quirky' titles, the DS probably has the biggest potential audience for independent publishers. Cooking Mama (which wasn't all that great, IMHO) was a prime example of 'budget ware'. (How Majesco thinks people will pay $50 for the Wii version is beyond me.) Other titles include the Brain 'series' (Age and Academy), most puzzle games, and a large amount of licensed content (movies, cartoons, etc.).

The Wii may be similar to it's portable brother in those areas, but Nintendo has so far disappointed the development community with the lack of annoucements for original Virtual Console games and lack of support for smaller developers. Once Nintendo gets those production issues ironed out, they have some other work cut out for them.