technically they didnt ignore the Wii, they just made different types of games.

The fact that the down-ports are a great game or not means little about the respective markets and their  selling power. Why would you think that?

Wii sales of COD in comparison to PS3+360 are a prime example of this in action. Two markets, two results.

Why not? COD are the same games in their down-ports with the exception of lower visuals and lower online multiplayer.

I don't see any reason they couldn't have done the same to those other games. The only potential issue is AC's large overworlds. However there are AC games on nonPS360s.

I really think it comes down to the cost to redo visuals and create an engine to do so. I could be done and the game would mostly have only suffered in terms of visuals.

Unfortunately it wasn't ever tried and all we got were games made from last gen engines slightly tweaked. Kinda why only Nintendo made games really pushed the visuals and overall hardware.

This is true, and goes hand in hand with Rol's good post.

You should have included the install base of PCs that can run games comparable to or above Wii standards (since that's baseline for this generation).

Its a self fullfilling prophecy.

"core" games were never put on Wii, therefore they didnt' sell, therefore those gamers bought a 2nd HD console.

Had those games been down-ported and presented from the beginning there is a solid argument to be made that a great number of those gamers would never have bought a 2nd console as the graphics alone were not the issue. But that never materialized and therefore the discussion can't really be given. COD is the only title we can discuss and on that front, it sold very well in its on regard. It wasn't equal to PS360, but I'm not saying they would ever had been equal. Just that those games could of done well and potentially the Wii could have broken the 50% mark as the content was available on all systems.

Its only two markets because 3rd parties forced that result.

No, that's what they should have done, but they didn't.  The Wii's market is about 2/3 of the HD twins market, but the Wii didn't get 2/3 of those games, and the games they got were way less than 2/3 of the quality.  I'm not arguing that every game needed or warrented a Wii port, but games platformers, quality party games, action adventure Zelda esque stuff, and so on, they could have seen some good returns.  Instead, (for the most part) they put out poorly conceived ports (Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop, Dead Space Extraction), bizarrely quirky games that wouldn't have sold any other console (No More Heroes, Mad World), and flat out bad titles.  They really didn't appeal to the market in the way they should have.  Hopefully, with the Wii U (which will have titles like Lego City Undercover and Scribblenauts Unlimited) developers will do a better job of reaching out to that market.

Now this is an interesting post.

There are 2 things to consider. 1 in your favor, one not.

1) The big 3rd party devs had readied themselves to support the playstation 3, the successor to the undisputed winner of gen 6. So, things were in motion to support the HD market.

2) Sony and MS pushed the "core" market, whereas Nintendo didn't. They pushed the pole opposite of that market, the casual market, via the software they published, and via their marketing.

2 points to the prophecy not being as self-fulfilling as you make it out to be.

Good point! How could I measure that?

Indeed.