Picko said: "At the end of the day, my theory starts with the hypothesis that developers are rationally responding to market incentives, whereas everyone else is out there loosely referring to conspiracy theories and assuming companies must be insane. Conspiracy theories are a highly unlikely event and if possible the mass insanity of game developers is even less likely (in fact its absurd). The answer has to lie with there being screwed up incentives for Wii developers and this is likely to be the case whether Wii gamers wish to believe it or not. Just don't expect there to be a huge increase in the quality of third party developed games any time soon, you'll just end up disappointed."

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Please, just stop. If you don't work in the industry, please stop telling people what the industry is doing. You're sounding as ignorant as fanboys on Gamestop. How can you suggest that there will be no increase in 3rd party games' quality. Because Ubisoft said so? They are one company, that is all. You expect them to be the pied piper of the industry, leading only crappy game development for the Wii? You know what will happen? Their Wii games will flop, and then they'll cry and say its Nintendo's fault somehow, while other developers succeed.

You chose to ignore my earlier comment, so I repost.
- A crappy Wii game might break 100k, resulting in sales of maybe 3 mil dollars, with a production cost of 1-2 mil, making a profit of 1 mil.

-A AAA Wii game will sell over 1 mil units, resulting in sales of maybe 30 mil dollars, with a production cost of 5-8 mil, making a profit of 22-25 mil dollars.

Last I checked 22 mil > 1 mil. Thus, developers have more to gain by making better quality titles. Besides, as a developer, I've witnessed the pain of having a game torn apart by rabid critics. No developer wants that shame upon them, unless they really have lost the desire to develop.

Several devs and publishers jumped on board last year after they realized that the Wii was seemingly a runaway success. It takes time for them to make quality titles. As I've mentioned before, there was an article from GameSpot.com last year that Square-Enix, Sega, and Capcom were dropping a lot of PS3 support to direct more attention to the Wii and DS. That announcement came around summer of 2007, as I recall. Those games won't be coming out until later this year at the soonest. 

 The same goes for a lot of companies.  The Wii started getting a lot of support after it launched, so the games weren't being built ahead of time like they were for the PS3 and Xbox360.  Many of the Wii's supporters early on weren't even working on Wii hardware--they were working off GameCube hardware with Wiimotes.  All of that has changed and there are more companies working with Nintendo on the Wii now than when it launched, and they're all using actual Wii hardware dev kits this time.

It took the DS about a year and a half to hit it's stride and had many of the same struggles early on--too much shovelware, too few apparent 3rd party supporters, and the like.  But now, it's the top selling system with no slow-down at all in it's sales.  It's momentum is immense.  The flood of higher quality, exlcusive titles continues to grow.  The Wii should start hitting it's stride--if it continues following in a similar path to the DS--around the holidays this year.  More and more stuff is being announced all the time now.  We just had Tenchu 4, Spyborgs, Mad World, Star Wars Clone Wars, Rune Factory, Sim City, and a few others all revealed in just the last couple weeks.  All of them being built from the ground-up exclusive for the Wii (Clone Wars also DS so far, of course).

I definitely agree for some games like Boom Blox, No More Heroes, Zack and Wiki, and any other quality third-party offerings which don't already have an established name is that they get lost amid a bunch of sub-par games on the shelf. Without advertising or some kind of name recognition, people just aren't going to flock to these games even if they do receive good reviews.

New IP's seem to have it a little better on the PS3/360, although the risk for failure can be much higher since HD game development costs are considerably higher. Within the next year or two budgets may be a little more under control when these studios can reuse or simply revise some of the tech they have already built.

Well if you mean huge first openings, then no. That doesn't mean the games don't sell. On the Bloom Blox page, it shows that, unless there's been overtracking, the game has some incredible legs. 

I realised that some games on the Wii don't need heavy marketing. Marketing just enough for work of mouth to kick in can do wonders.

Could possibly even work for big budget games, but I'm not sure publishers would want to have to wait more than a month for profits. 

Last Gen I had a GC and GBA, so with DS/PSP/WII things can only improve lol
But seriosuly, I expect the Wii 3rd party to be like DS. Keep in mind DS had almost no 3rd party the first 6 months, and quite weak 3rd party for the entire first year. AND the DS had a head start on PSP. Meanwhile, 360 had a one year head start on Wii. Give it time. But expect DS style support

 Name the games.

Here's the all inspiring conclusion to this dilemma, are u rdy for it? Get a Ps3 in 3 weeks. After MGS has come out for it.

 You have a point. I do think a lot of 3rd party developers think like this. But the number of really succesful low-budget games on the wii is, as far as I can tell, really small. Almost all of the real successes are well-made games, not low-budget ones. The problem, we think, is that developers do not realise what makes Nintendo's games sell, and not theirs. If they put out high quality games, they would sell a lot more, is what we think.

High-quality does not at all mean highly scored games. It just means that the games are fun and good at doing what they're supposed to. This usually means you have to spend a bit of money on them, and maybe put people in charge that know what they are doing. It means looking over all the details, making sure everything is right. 

 The way to make a high-quality game lies in not thinking too little about ones audience, but instead trying to understand them. It lies in making a product that you are proud over, and that you would enjoy playing. Anyone assuming that their audience doesn't care about quality probably won't sell so many games, but they might make some money out of it anyway. 

A great example of a high-quality game is Brain Training. It's a well thought-through, well executed and stylish collection of excersizes. It's simple, yes, but it never ever belittles the player. It uses really good voice-recognition software and pretty amazing handwriting recognition software (at least I think so). It is the perfect example of a high quality 'casual' game. It has sold around 15 million copies. If you think it sold that many just because it was a brain-training game, think again.

An almost great example of this is Boom blox. It contains almost the same qualities, except EA has specifically tried aiming it at kids at the age of 12. This is EA's doing, I think, and not the developers, since the interviews I have read on this subject has had the producer say 'It's great for everyone, and I like it a lot'. It's a great game that needs to be targeted to everyone.  Let's face it, there are more of 'everyone' than of 'kids the age of 12'. And usually 'everyone' has more money to spend too.

 I would not mind more high quality games like these, and I think that there is a market for them. But all of what I said here is just my personal opinion. I might be wrong. I usually am. But I won't assume that executives of big companies know better than me what kind of game I want to spend my money on.