agreed again :P

Yes, because that's the purpose of first-party software.

LOL Wii is doomed threads again. hahahahaha

For a 4-5 year hardware life cycle (of optimal or rising sales, not past peak declining sales) it wasn't a bad strategy considering Nintendo made a healthy profit on every unit sold from Day 1. More profitable as manufacturing costs dropped with increased yields and any streamlining that may have happened to the hardware.

But yes, in terms of software support (third party, everyone knows Nintendo had a handle with games on their own hardware), I think the limited hardware specs (RAM and VRAM is another big constraint) relative to the competition in addition to the basic non-standard control scheme, directed most of the big soft franchises away from the platform.

Of course easy portability for the Wii with similar hardware specs (better processor, better GPU, more VRAM and RAM) would have meant that the Wii would have been either priced similarly to the competition or at a lower profit, possibly both. And that's just not how Nintendo makes its gold coins.

But, since this isn't a typical 4-5 year hardware cycle, we're beginning to see more of the problems with Nintendo's Wii strategy. Even if Nintendo dropped production today, the Wii couldn't be seen as anything but a monumental success for Nintendo given the number of units already sold and all the Nintendo published titles they sold.

My opinion on the Wii is that Nintendo never intended it to be more than a successful niche product and they priced and specced it accordingly. Sure they probably felt it would outsell the Gamecube but I doubt that they even thought it would outpace the PS2 in like for like terms over the first few years of its life. It was both underpriced for the demand and underspecced to leave its niche. Nintendo painted themselves into this corner because they never believed that their product would sell 70M consoles by late 2010 or be sold out so consistantly over the first 2 years of its life. Remember they initially were going to sell the console for $199 U.S.D. which would have been even more inadequate and they only raised the price when they found out how much the PS3 was going to cost.

Im certainly not saying that Nintendo were unsuccessful with their Wii. However it does appear that they failed to back their console appropriately. Even minor changes relatively could have made big improvements to how the Wii responded to the current market conditions. Something as minor as making the analogue stick the 5th button to hand and installing a 2-4* more powerful CPU and slapping in a little more RAM and a modern GPU which could have raised the Bill of Materials $30-40 which would diminish over time and given them at least port compatibility with >50% of the DX9 console markets games could have been all they would have needed. Developers could have designed games which are compatible to all 3 had it actually been realistic for them to do so. The major cost in not doing so is the fact that their market is so hit driven on the Wii. Either you strike or you strike out whereas on the DX9 consoles there are enough people who buy 5-10 games a year to allow niche games to at least bring back some revenue.

Look at the PS2

I really think Nintendo was not planning on a life cycle of much more than 5 years for the Wii, making hardware spec constraints far less of an issue than releasing a relatively inexpensive yet profitable hardware platform that offered something a bit off the main path.

The specs were not much of an issue since I don't believe Nintendo was shopping for direct ports of third party games, but rather original games that made use of the different control scheme that was supposed to be the main selling point of the console.

I would also say that making the console a updated version of the GC made it easy for anyone who was a GC developer to port their titles to the Wii and set a low learning curve when developing new titles for the platform.

And yes, I'm sure there are plenty of bean counters at Nintendo who have beaten their heads over the fact that even at $250, the Wii was underpriced relative to demand.

In regards to third party sales performance, barring franchises that sold well on EVERY platform, I seriously doubt Nintendo ever had issue with the fact that none of them really offered much competition to Nintendo's own titles in terms of sales. I'm quite sure that they would rather have a Wii owner buy their games than third party ones.

Wow, doomed wii weekly threat here we go...

I dont think is still close to an end, Wii peaked already, thats true, is still going to sell very well, I wouldnt doubt wii beating ps3/360 this quarter, of course not like it did the last two years but still, wii is on its way to the 100 million, I still think nintendo is not going to release the new home console until 2012, maybe march 2012 or so... I do see wii havinf wo more hollydays...

I was one of those! One of those who were MEGA hyped for Wii and Twilight Princess (I even 'MOCKED' my best friend for getting TP on GC and not Wii, because of amazing motion controlling). However the (for me) novelty faded quickly, and it also turned out to be my biggest disappointment this gen, no, EVER in gaming. I even ended up buying TP on GC (ironic, heh). Now, 4 - 5 years later, this disappointment (including others) have made me buy only 7 Wii games, 4 of which are Nintendo games (Galaxy (best game this gen imo), Paper Mario, Metroid: Prime and the (god awful) Mario Strikers). Coming from this (my anecdotal evidence ;D) I don't feel TP on Wii is a good measurement on how Skyward Sword will sell.

In comparison I have bought 58 PS3 titles (all played and enjoyed), 46 PSN titles, 13 PSP games, 12 DS games and even about 15 PS2 games in a shorter/same timeframe. 

What I'm trying to say is: I am one of those who made TP that GREAT launch title and been an avid Zelda fan since... well, since forever, but I won't buy Skyward Sword. I'm not even hyped... Not even a little bit...

It's also the same thing for most other Wii titles: DKC Returns (own all 3 on SNES, completed multiple times, my fav SNES games), M: OM, Kirby (Looks EPIC though), SSBB (Melee was my most played game BY FAR last gen), MKWii (MK:DD is my 2nd most played game last gen and MK64 is my 2nd most played game on the 64, behind Goldeneye), NSMBWii (I got ALL classic 2D Mario games from NES --> GC) and the WiiSeries. No hype at all (except SSBB. I had massive hype, and it was an even BIGGER disappointment than TP), no interest, Nintendo killed all the interest I had in their games with the Wii. So as you can see, I am one (of many) Wii owner(s) that don't really contribute to the console anymore.

When you have 1st, second and last place, which one dominates?

"Spain didn't win the last world cup, because they didn't score as much goals as the second and third losers..."  ?