I think it was a lose-lose for Japan. They shouldve supported it with at least more PS2/PSP crossovers. No reason the PS2 should have had any exclusives over there after 2007; and no reason the PSP should receive all these titles when they Literally  won't surpass 150k anywhere else in the world. If Japan was really adamant about catering to a global market, they should've made some stuff for the market leader.

For everywhere else, I blame Wii Fit :P

You forgot that they also release them and let them live or die by themselves instead of actually put out some advertising and promotion.

An IP few people know isn't going to sell itself.

I've never seen a poster for 3rd party Wii games but see the PS3 and Xbox360 posters all the time. More Xbox360.

@galaki thats true too, they also get alot less attention in the media compared to the HDs, but that is on publishers, but the console runners also play a part. lets face it, MS loves to advertise crap. Im not saying Ninty needs to go millions of dollars in but a little more push would have helped, maybe.

market saturation due to hardware reliability..... that's the only true reason it stops selling... Who here hasn't bought 2 PS2s but bought 2 Wiis?

I wouldn't say it's lose-lose. Maybe it's silly abandoning ALL support, but after 5.6 years into a generation, we can't expect awesome sales all around, and with 2 new consoles around the corner, what do you expect?

I'd say it's definitely a lose-lose. 

The Wii has been the first console for a lot of gamers, young and old. Those newcomers are going to think Resident Evil is a decent rail-shooter franchise, Castlevania is a mediocre fighting franchise, and Soul Calibur is a series of crappy action adventures.

Publishers have been deliberately sabotaging their own brands in the eyes of the next generation of gamers. 

And then they wonder why they can't compete with Nintendo.

^^^^ i think most people are smart enough to know that is not the case with those franchises or at least they have friends with HDs/PCs to show them how they really are, or hell some older consoles or better yet just get some damn GC games

Oh, please...

I think it is entirely Nintendo's fault for making low budget games and releasing a console that was a generation behind the other two.

Some will, and that'll help, but even if people are later exposed to that information, the publishers still didn't get 'em young. One of the reasons why people line up for Resident Evil 15, Final Fantasy XXVI, and Super Mario Eleventy-Nine is the nostalgia factor. The names and symbols are familiar and conjure up images of a carefree youth. That's part of how you build an enduring mega-franchise.

Think of how easy it is to identify the users on this site as NES generation, Playstation generation, or even Genesis generation.

For the Wii generation, those nostalgia games are going to be Wii Sports, Mario Kart, and NSMB. No Metal Gear. No Final Fantasy. No Street Fighter. Like an absentee parent, the third party franchises just. weren't. there.

^^^^ third party franchises werent there??? sure they were they were on PS360/PC.  Your not giving children enough credit, they talk to each other. YOu dont think they know whats up and what game is on what console??? Sure they do. And lets get real, im pretty sure all those millions of HD consoles sold i know for a fact that some of them were sold to new gamers. So for those little tikes there in pretty good hands and they will naturally school there classmates and buddies on how these franchises really gets down, at least thats the way i used to do it