Its not a fair trade. However Nintendo plays hardball...Nintendo would rather see Godleneye go to waste than come out on another console(Wii as well). So microsoft needs to be a bigger company and offer something bigger.

Plus they can still make VP on the 360 if they want... :)

 Otherwise goldeneye redone, with online, graphics, updated controlls...that would be legendary.

Or at least the best Rare game from this generation, eh?

My girl loves Viva Pinata -- it's one of the primary reasons we got a 360 over a PS3.  She has said a few times that she thought it would do better with Wii style control, though. 

Does this mean we get to smack the piñatas with the wiimote?

Look at all that candy!

Although Microsoft allowing Rare to produce games for the Wii would be unlikely and unprecidented they could have a deeper purpose behind it; besides the obvious "Microsoft is going third party!" or "Microsoft plans to flood the Wii with crappy games!" conspiracy theories that is ...

One of the problems Microsoft faces when they're trying to make games which appeal to a broader demographic than the XBox or XBox 360 have sold to is these gamers don't own the system to play these games on, and they're unlikely to buy a system to play these games on. To see what I mean, imagine how well a brain training or Nintendogs title would sell on the XBox 360 if they were released today; they would probably be profitable but wouldn't receive the same level of popularity as their Nintendo DS/Wii counterparts.

In the next generation, if Microsoft wants to appeal to the broader demographic they will need several high quality well known franchises to attract to their more affordable and approachable system; some of these franchises can probably be taken from third party publishers that have produced these games for the Wii (or PS2 previously) but Microsoft would (probably) need a few internally developed.

What this means is Microsoft has a problem because they can develop these games internally for the XBox 360 but they (probably) will not become that well know or popular, they can buy third party developers to produce these games for their next generation system but those may not be that high of quality (with how some third party developers approach their "Casual" Wii games), they could try to learn as they go by developing their first wave of these games when they release their next system (but these will obviously not be well known, and there will be a stiff learning curve to make them quality), or they could do the unprecidented thing of developing these games for the Wii and/or Nintendo DS.

Personally, I would doubt we would see any/many games developed by Microsoft for the Wii; and I suspect they would probably try a multi-tiered approach of internal development for the XBox 360, buying popular third party developers, creating new development teams for the launch of their next system, and allowing some developers to explore ideas on the Nintendo DS.

Not surprising. Microsoft makes software for MACs.

The thing is, though, that the Wii has the ideal control scheme for Viva Pinata.  It's the perfect system for that game.  It won't look as pretty as the 360 version, of course, but they could still make it very nice.

How about MS let's Rare do VP on the Wii and in turn Nintendo let's Rare do a new Donkey Kong Country on the 360!? I think that's a fair trade.

Tossing VP on the wii sounds like a great move, the cash this game could make is crazy, maybe 4mil copies within the first year alone. This might help the 360 with a price cut or more TV ads or more money to buy JRPG's.

honestly cant see it happening but if it was to appear on the Wii it would be around the same time that the second gets released for 360.

Either that or if they do push forward for the X-mote then why not try to make a Wii360 tier with multi plat motion control games and them ensuring the 360 looks better with additional elements (probably dlc and online) to help them get a leg up in the casual market.  It would probably make most third party Wii games also get launched for the 360 if the X-mote did happen and they proved games could work on both.

Kinda off-topic but I must say...

Goldeneye >>>>>>>>>>> Viva Piñata

If that's the trade, Microsoft would do a good exchange.