I find this argument a little odd because it wasn't that long ago that the frat-boy gamer who makes up the bulk of the COD franchise sales was considered the "Casual Gamer" who should be derided ...

The core problem with all simple metrics trying to determine how large of a "core" audience there is on a platform is there has been massive growth in the number of multi-console households over the past generation. While I could be wrong, I suspect that the typical household with a videogame system probably has 2 or more current generation systems and the Wii is probably in the vast majority of those households. This created an odd situation where, because the core games released to the Wii were mediocre and gamers interested in those types of games would choose to play them on the HD consoles, developers were able to justify producing mediocre Wii games because their sales were better on the HD consoles.

Being that the Wii U is the first to market, Nintendo has an opportunity to start things out differently by establishing strong "core" game sales before their competition is on the market; and this will put the challenge on Sony and Microsoft to produce a compelling alternative to justify buying their system instead of or alongside the Wii U. There is always the possiblity that Sony and Microsoft will focus on hardware performance, but this could become a negative if developers don't want to deal with the added development costs of targeting these systems; and Sony/Microsoft could have to justify a higher price-tag with no visual improvements over their competition.

I find this argument a little odd because it wasn't that long ago that the frat-boy gamer who makes up the bulk of the COD franchise sales was considered the "Casual Gamer" who should be derided ...

The core problem with all simple metrics trying to determine how large of a "core" audience there is on a platform is there has been massive growth in the number of multi-console households over the past generation. While I could be wrong, I suspect that the typical household with a videogame system probably has 2 or more current generation systems and the Wii is probably in the vast majority of those households. This created an odd situation where, because the core games released to the Wii were mediocre and gamers interested in those types of games would choose to play them on the HD consoles, developers were able to justify producing mediocre Wii games because their sales were better on the HD consoles.

Being that the Wii U is the first to market, Nintendo has an opportunity to start things out differently by establishing strong "core" game sales before their competition is on the market; and this will put the challenge on Sony and Microsoft to produce a compelling alternative to justify buying their system instead of or alongside the Wii U. There is always the possiblity that Sony and Microsoft will focus on hardware performance, but this could become a negative if developers don't want to deal with the added development costs of targeting these systems; and Sony/Microsoft could have to justify a higher price-tag with no visual improvements over their competition.

There's a difference between "better" and "vastly superior". The music, exercise and kid friendly multiplatform games are at best marginally better on the HD consoles. There is no significant difference, so you are good to go with any platform. That's why these genres perform well on the Wii, because they aren't second or third rate products.

When it comes to other genres you are usually looking at massive differences between the Wii and HD versions. NfS which you mentioned isn't just a worse looking game on the Wii, it's entirely different and was outsourced to some crappy developer. And this isn't by far the only example. The general rule is that the HD versions have the top developers working on them while the Wii version is made by a second string studio, if not worse. Sure, most games would be better on the HD consoles by default (due to graphics), but not vastly superior like it has been the case this entire generation. And since these games are targeted at the core customers (the people who are informed), the Wii versions flop left and right, because they fail to reach the treshold of being good enough.

Your three examples of Wii games that were better than the HD versions aren't especially good, because no version of the game was really worth buying at the recommended retail price to begin with. Well, perhaps you bought all three of them. Although if I had to take a guess, I would answer "no" on all three.

Lego games usually tend to sell much better on the Wii than it's HD counterpart as well.  There are a few other genres that do better on the Wii but that should belong to a diffrent thread don't cha think?

There's a difference between "better" and "vastly superior". The music, exercise and kid friendly multiplatform games are at best marginally better on the HD consoles. There is no significant difference, so you are good to go with any platform. That's why these genres perform well on the Wii, because they aren't second or third rate products.

When it comes to other genres you are usually looking at massive differences between the Wii and HD versions. NfS which you mentioned isn't just a worse looking game on the Wii, it's entirely different and was outsourced to some crappy developer. And this isn't by far the only example. The general rule is that the HD versions have the top developers working on them while the Wii version is made by a second string studio, if not worse. Sure, most games would be better on the HD consoles by default (due to graphics), but not vastly superior like it has been the case this entire generation. And since these games are targeted at the core customers (the people who are informed), the Wii versions flop left and right, because they fail to reach the treshold of being good enough.

Your three examples of Wii games that were better than the HD versions aren't especially good, because no version of the game was really worth buying at the recommended retail price to begin with. Well, perhaps you bought all three of them. Although if I had to take a guess, I would answer "no" on all three.