I think it was a fluke, sales wise. Never liked motion controls, couldn't play Skyward Sword because of it. Barely any PS360 games ended up on it because of the poor hardware. The only good thing to come out of the Wii were the Mario Galaxy games, and even then I think they could've done without the crappy motion controls.

I think this NeoGaf post is something I could appreciate when it comes to the perception of Nintendo and the Wii.
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=250923767&postcount=198

While I agree there were a lot of shovelware, this wasn't as if it was out of the norm. Hell, AVGN talked so much about the bad games on the NES, SNES, and even the Genesis. Hell, I'm sure there were plenty of PS1-2 shovel ware.

Anyway, the Wii is among my favorite consoles. While the best games were mostly obvious, there were lots of hidden gems for a variety of gamers. Red Steel 2, No More Heroes, MadWorld, Muramasa, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, The Conduit, Boom Blox, Zach and Wiki, Dead Space Extraction, Endless Ocean, Cursed Mountain, NBA Jam, GoldenEye 007, Epic Mickey, Excite Truck, Little King's Story, Silent Hill Shattered Memories, Sonic Colors, Disaster Day of Crisis, Monster Hunter Tri, etc. Of course, solid ports of Project Zero 2, Resident Evil 4, Okami, CoD, Tomb Raider (before the reboot), Madden, and the like. Not to mention, 2 Zelda games, 2 3D Mario games, which was a first, the whole Metroid Prime trilogy, 2 different Kirby games, Smash, Kart, Rhythm Heaven, Animal Crossing, DKC Returns, Wii Sports, Mario sports games, Punch Out! Wii, The Last Story, Pandora's Tower, Xenoblade Chronicles, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, Super Paper Mario, and 2D Mario. Plus Virtual Console, while not perfect, was a great addition in reviving games from the past and from consoles outside of Nintendo as well.

Regardless of what you think, that's a helluva library, if you take out the shovel ware. I like that the Wii wanted to take its own path and try something different. In an industry where, and still is, all about power and graphics, the Wii was a nice simple alternative. And it worked. So many people from different audiences that were not explored before in gaming flocked to the Wii. I had multiple family members and friends who have a Wii and they weren't "gamers" according to those hardcore gamers. I appreciate Nintendo and the Wii for allowing my family to play when other consoles didn't give that vibe to those non-gamers. You wouldn't see that on Xbox or PlayStation, and no offense to their success. I have a 360 myself, but I really enjoyed what I played on Wii. It was a great time for me as a long time gamer.

On the subject of shovelware, based on some article I read a long time ago, the presence of shovelware means that a console is successful. NES, Gameboy, PS1, PS2, Wii, DS, etc--they were up to their necks in shit and are some of the most successful of all time.

Mediocre hardware with more than a few great titles a 3.75/5 so I did like it. Just a shame it's life was so short because of the lack of 576p.

I disagree I would place Sonic 06 and Duke Nukem above Just Dance and Carnival Games...ok maybe not Sonic 06 that was real bad. But even then it wasnt like there were alot of games like Sonic 06 on its respective systems. They just kept making Just Dance like games and not alot else (cant blame em, they were selling good and didnt cost much too make)

Outside of maybe DS and GB how much of those other systems had nearly as much shovelware as Wii?

I remember when Wii had 49.8% of the market. That was awesome.

No More Heroes was the only reason I bought on e though.

Yeah, pretty much. A lot of gamers just couldn't seem to handle a Nintendo console beating a Playstation console and so the excuses came pouring in about how Wii magically didn't count.

I'd still say there were mountains of bad games on PS3/360, they were just generic action/sports/movie titles instead of casual fitness/minigame titles. Being "core" and in HD didn't make them any less rubbish.

So much truth in both answers

How ... timely!