Way too early to think that 'zomg, everyone who owns wii is pirating!'. First, Nintendo's already working to foil any modders. Secondly, pirating has been an issue for awhile, and modders are going to do whatever possible to mod their systems. But a majority of owners aren't going to crack their system open and solder stuff to their board. Third, I believe I recall them already working on BR writers for PCs? So it'd only be a matter of time before they did the same for the PS3. Pirates are going to pirate regardless. It's up to the makers to duke it out as long as possible, and showing the market you're going to fight to keep as much pirating off your system as possible, is usually enough to instill some confidence in developers.

Also, I think the idea that money is the only motivation is there, but dependant on the amount of money the company is making. If a company has come into hard times, struggling to make profits, or projects fell short of expectations, they might be a lot less motivated to do something artsy or risky and outside the general market. You can make a quirky or more abstract game if you're looking at a decent income flow. 

Not really too early to think. It is already happening. Wii got hacked within a month. You should see the amount of torrent downloads for Wii games. And BD writers are already on the market for like 2 mths. PS3 hacking is still in the development. I will not mod my PS3, but I did mod my Wii. Why? Who ask nintendo to keep region coding. Why must I buy a Jap Wii to play Jap games and an US Wii to play US games? Until they realize that region coding must go(like PS3), I will support mod-chips. But thats just me, and I believe majority of the modders are in for the piracy.

Even with the availability of BD writers... It is not as simple a task as DVD writers and downloading 4.7gb of data. This isn't fool-proof, but at least it makes it harder.

Not really too early to think. It is already happening. Wii got hacked within a month. You should see the amount of torrent downloads for Wii games. And BD writers are already on the market for like 2 mths. PS3 hacking is still in the development. I will not mod my PS3, but I did mod my Wii. Why? Who ask nintendo to keep region coding. Why must I buy a Jap Wii to play Jap games and an US Wii to play US games? Until they realize that region coding must go(like PS3), I will support mod-chips. But thats just me, and I believe majority of the modders are in for the piracy.

Even with the availability of BD writers... It is not as simple a task as DVD writers and downloading 4.7gb of data. This isn't fool-proof, but at least it makes it harder.

Thoughts in my head are often formed in the context of arguments; I will deliberately criticize my own ideas in order to see their flaws. One such idea (that I've seen on this site several times) is that game developers won't make games for the Wii because they are artists. As artists, they would not compromise their craft by developing games on an inferior platform. Okay, so this was how my internal dialogue handled this idea:

Max: It seems to me that a lot of developers will move over to Wii development. Because it has a much larger install base than the PS3, and because development costs are considerably lower, publishers stand to make a great deal more money from these Wii games.

Steve: No, I don't agree. Artists don't compromise themselves. They will not accept inferior technology for the development of their art.[/quote]

1) Artists compromise all the time, especicially in gaming. No system is able to do everything an artist wants (unless its something deliberately retro, but that's besides the point).

2) The "artists" don't make the decisions - the management of the companies do. The company pays the artists, the artists need to eat. If the money is on the Wii, many will go to the Wii. Only a handful of game designers are have a name that let's them bypass this. 

3) If an artist can be inspired by PS3 graphics, why not by the WiiMote? And what if its both? Won't he be forced to compromise? 

No, you're dead on. Compromising for Wii sales is no different than compromising for PS3 sales (well, a little different, as right now only a moron would compromise for PS3 sales). It also overlooks the fact that last gen developers compromised for the PS2 over the XB and GCN. Before that it was the PSX over the N64, Before that is was Genesis and SNES over 3DO.

It's far from nonsense. Just compare the ad campaigns from the three consoles.

As an example, I showed my wife all three campaigns, and this is her response:

Wii (We would like to play) - excellent response; friendly, brings the family together

360 (the "banned" finger-gun shooting scene) - a bit violent, but at least everyone is in it "together"

PS3 (the baby, egg, and whatnot ads) - wth? evil - intimidating, scary, I don't want something like that black beast in my home!

You can safely say that a) she has no objection to having a Wii at home, and will try it out; b) she wouldn't mind my buying a 360 but she wouldn't try it herself; c) she doesn't want a PS3 anywhere near our household.

If that doesn't target demographics, then I don't know what does.

You have to keep in mind that yes, Wii can get Manhunt2 and PS3 can get Barbie for all I know (or care), but that doesn't change the fact that their target demographic are different, and as such people generally buy into the system based on what they perceive in the advertisements (hardcore VGChartz guys like us notwithstanding - I'm talking about average Joes and Janes here). That other games not directly targeted towards a specific demographic may come out is inevitable, because you will always get a cross-section of different demographics for every console, or any product for that matter (including games), but there is still a target demographic that companies aim for when selling their products. Look at Johnny Walker ads vs Budweiser ads or Apple ads vs Microsoft ads. They all have target groups that they aim for, and they are different depending on the product.

"I'm not saying the Wii's demographic is skewed against violent games, but if GTAIV was put on the Wii as well you could bet any money that there would be a massive demographic of GTA fans owning Wiis and wanting more of those types of games to play."

Agreed. But games and consoles, being by definition "products", do have target markets that companies want to aim for.

If that was a major concern nothing would have been made for the PS2.  It was easily hacked very early on.  Every system's region encoding is broken easily.  Don't fool yourself either, the PS3 did not get rid of region encoding because they thought it would help their sales or benefit their consumers.   They did it because it was one less piece of hardware they had to include and could help keep the cost down on their end.

Another point to add to the argument.  If developer's artistic vision had much effect on the development of a game (or if that artistic vision really just means more realistic graphics) the PS2 would have had very few games for it.  The Dreamcas, Gamecube, and Xbox were all signifficantly more powerful than the PS2, and capable of much better graphics.  For example, put up a screenshot of RE4 for the PS2 next to RE4 for the GC.  The difference is astounding. 

I think the Wii will be almost identical to the PS2 last generation.  It will have a similar marketshare, a mixture of both casual and hardcore demographics, and the majority of games.  It will have a lot of crap, and a lot of good games.  The PS3 and 360 will be just like the Xbox and Gamecube were last generation (the PS3 is on a sales track almost directly following that of the gamecube).  They will have some truly great games, but they just won't have nearly as many games overall.  They will need to depend more on proprietary franchises (Ratchet & Clank, God of War, Halo) just like Nintendo depended on their first party.  There will be a lot of good PS3 and 360 games throughout 2008, then a drop in quantity developed and released will be apparent.  This is because developers started on their great big money games with the PS3 and 360 before the Wii's success was evident.  The games take so long to develop that you won't notice the slowdown in 360 and PS3 development until 08, because that's how long it will take to finish development on the big games.  Then 3rd parties will shift those primary developers to wherever they see the most money (the Wii most likely) and send the 2nd and 3rd string parties on the remaining systems.  This is already seen with companies that didn't have big PS3 and 360 titles in development like Ubisoft and Activision.  It will likely happen with those that currently do but aren't done with them yet (Square Enix and Konami), but we will have to wait and see.  Also, because of the struggles of these 2 systems individually, it's not unlikely at all that nearly every big game will be released as a time delay on not only another SKU but also on the PC.

That's my view on the current generation and how games will be developed within it.