I agree with you that the 3rd parties COULD have filled in where Nintendo didn't and also agree that they didn't for some reason. I think you're going too far to consider it a "conspiracy." I think it's mainly that a lot of the workforce just doesn't want to work on the Wii because it doesn't offer them what they want.

I personally wouldn't want to develop for the Wii if given a chance to develop for the HD twins because the Wii doesn't offer ways to advance my skills in the way I want to. Speaking as a game developer and engineer, most people like me want to keep advancing their careers and learning new things. The PS3 and 360 offer a different toolset to work with thant he Wii.  The tools and skills that some people have been nuturing and advancing (graphics, AI, "cutting edge" type stuff) for most of their careers could continue to grow if they work on the HD twins and wouldn't necessarily grow if they worked on the Wii. Thus, some engineers just flat out would rather work on the HD twins for the sake of their careers and knowledge.

No, I'm not saying the Wii doesn't offer learning and advancement of skill set in other skills. Developing for the Wii can definetly advance optimization, dealing with new input methods and drastic changes in game design but I would think these skills mainly fall to game developers and not engineers.

just my opinion of course, I could be talking out of my rear end.

I don't buy into the BS argument that the Wii lacks the technology to "inspire" game development because if that was the case there would be even less support for the DS, PSP, iPhone, and the HD consoles would have been abandoned by now for high end gaming PCs ...

The simple explaination for the support the Wii got is that third party publishers believed the Wii wasn't going to be particularly successful, redirected the vast majority of their quality development teams to games that would be released for the XBox 360, PS3 and PC, and then avoided creating any similar games for the Wii to protect their investment in the HD games; after all, if you've spent $40+ Million on a HD game (and over $100 Million including marketing) you probably don't want to spend an addition $10 Million to make a quality Wii game that will only detract from sales of your big budget game.

I don't buy into the BS argument that the Wii lacks the technology to "inspire" game development because if that was the case there would be even less support for the DS, PSP, iPhone, and the HD consoles would have been abandoned by now for high end gaming PCs ...

The simple explaination for the support the Wii got is that third party publishers believed the Wii wasn't going to be particularly successful, redirected the vast majority of their quality development teams to games that would be released for the XBox 360, PS3 and PC, and then avoided creating any similar games for the Wii to protect their investment in the HD games; after all, if you've spent $40+ Million on a HD game (and over $100 Million including marketing) you probably don't want to spend an addition $10 Million to make a quality Wii game that will only detract from sales of your big budget game.

I never said it was an argument, sorry if that was implied. Merely stating my opinion as a game developer and anecdotal evidence that I've seen from within my field.

You are correct that if everyone just went with "highest tech" development apporaches then most everyone would program for PC and the handheld devices, as you mentioned, would get little to no love.

Most game devs I know mainly take jobs for a few reasons (in descending order):

1. Passion (for the techonlogy, for the project)

2. Money

3. Other misc. stuff (vacation days, location, working from home, etc. etc.)

I think that the Wii (and the products companies want to make for the Wii) give game devs much of #1. The Wii lacks some hardware which turns off some devs. But, as you mentioned, that would turn off people from making DS games too and there is lots of 3rd party support for the DS (and iPhone and crappy phones, etc.), so that's not the full story.

The other part is that, for whatever reasons (probably due to the fact that the mini game collections sold so well at the beginning or maybe it's a "conspiracy"), a lot of companies thought it's only worth it to make some mini game collections/on rails shooter/other crap for the Wii which was hard for people to get passionate about making the games (and even harder for people to be passionate about playing them). Given that scenario, the companies probably found it hard to put the "good talent" on the companies' intial set of Wii games (due to lack of passion for platform and hatred of making stupid games), thus the games didn't sell well and companies developed an opinion that 3rd party games don't sell well.

Again, just my opinion based on some anecdotal evidence from knowing some game devs.

From my experience, game developers can make more money doing (just about) any other job they are qualified to do; possibly with substantially more time off and greater benefits. What motivates people to choose game development is that it is more interesting work, but what makes it more interesting is very different for everyone. I know just as many developers who loathe HD game development because they're an anonymous cog with little/no input as those who love HD development, and just as many developers who love doing "impossible" things on "underpowered" hardware as those who love working with the latest and greatest tech ... and yet, outside of switching jobs, none of them have any control over the platform they develop for

Outside of a few high profile development studios, what you're producing for which platform is decided by the management of the studio or the publisher who is funding the project.

Outside of a few high profile development studios, what you're producing for which platform is decided by the management of the studio or the publisher who is funding the project.

But even then, the management decision can be swayed by the desires of its internal teams. Call them internal factors if you like.

Certainly, they do take the desires of the team into consideration ... Which is why countless "core" projects for the Wii were proposed to publishers only to be rejected.

The "golden rule" (he who has the gold makes the rules) is very powerful within the gaming industry, and the people with "the gold" (publishers) were never willing to put any significant funding into the development of core titles on the Wii. The reason for this is open to interpretation, but it had little to do with the lack of desire of developers to produce these games, or with gamers willingness to buy these games, and (because this contributed to many core gamers owning multiple consoles) I believe it was driven by publishers trying to force people to buy games they were already heavily invested in.

I know I'm working from anecdotal evidence, but from Ubisoft Montreal (and I lived in Montreal quite some time), the word was that HD consoles were the way to go, from Devs.

But to touch the main part of your post, my favorite part ;/)

Jafar from Aladdin: "You haven't heard of the golden rule boy... whoever has the gold makes the rules... HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" :D