I'm not necessarily saying its as easy.  But given current situations of having "easy" Wii games pay off for these games it becomes easy.  Games like Carnival Games on Wii to pay off GTA IV made that game of little risk to make.  Games like Game Party allow Midway to continue to make failed PS360 games haha. 

But even without that PS360 games sell pretty well right now given the current market.  But down the line they want as Wii takes mainstream appeal away from them.  And when that happens making those games dominant on PS360 won't seem like such a good idea when you can invest half the price for a AAA Wii game and get probably close to the same amount of sales.  But now you've spent less and and made larger profits.

But devs will only start seeing this as Wii userbases continues to grow and generate more mainstream appeal.  As much as we hate Nintendo's "disappointing" Wii lineup for the rest of the year this really opens things up for 3rd parties.  And when that mainstream crowd comes to buy this holiday season and goes through dominant 3rd party releases then you are going to see a change in 09.  While PS360 will still be good, most people just fail to understand the power of having mainstream appeal.  Especially in the holiday season.  And I think this is the thing that is going to turn 3rd party's attentions away.  Watch out for GH:WT on Wii this holiday season.  Even with the higher price we should see something truly extroardinary.

Perhaps you're right, especially about how the shift will hasten as time goes by. But from the financial reports I've seen, the HD consoles aren't really all that profitable for third parties right now either. In fact, even the Big Three are either losing money despite having record revenue (EA) are making a good share of their profits off the Wii and DS (Activision), or are being bankrolled primarily by the DS (Ubisoft). Sure, we're all wowed when Assassin's Creed or GTA IV light up the charts like they just did, but for every one of those games there are dozens of bombs and failures. Although I can hardly argue that GTA IV was a risk in any way: that and Metal Gear had "hit" written all over them.

But in light of how absurdly expensive those games were to produce, I have to think the companies' managements aren't as happy with the games as they'd like to be. Sure, the games are bringing in millions, but they cost tens of millions as well. When you have situations where a company's executive outright says "we need to sell a million on day one or we're screwed", or where a high-profile exclusive quietly goes multi-platform just to ensure that it has a shot of breaking even, you've got an industry with serious problems on its hands.

I remember before the current gen even launched, there were widespread concern about how absurdly high development costs on the HD consoles were going to be, but the general attitude was "what else can we do?!" Here's one example, if you're interested.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/dice-does-consolidation-kill-innovation

I know I'm coming off as a total fanboy right now, but I honestly dislike the HD consoles because of what they're doing to developers. If the Wii hadn't taken off, we'd see damn few console developers this generation, and that annoys me to no end, because without that multitude of voices innovation becomes less and less likely. But it's late, and maybe I'm just tired, so I'll end my ranting and raving here. Have a good night, dude, thanks for listening, and sorry for the lecture.

nice. i just learned the kanji for flippant in japanese. karui
its a car and then a hand over the ground.... yes this is trivial and inane and non sequitor, but it is also late....

Well I think you are starting to see a shift in where these companies are going with development by looking past the numbers in the financial report and look at the words. What games are they quoting are making them money. In Take 2's how many times do we have to hear about Carnival Games. In Ubisoft's how many times do we have to hear about Rayman or the Imagine series, ect. I mean and sure we'll hear about big wigs like GTA IV and Assassin's Creed, but who would have ever thought that those games would have to share space with Carnival Games.

And I think many devs are falsely placing this success due to what kind of game they are when in reality its simply because its a series that became mainstream on the biggest mainstream console in gaming right now. And if they'd realize how much money they can make off a mediocre game that had to become mainstream, imagine what they could make off a game that already is mainstream and is well done haha. This is why I'm saying look out for GH:WT. I mean GHIII on the Wii wasn't even as complete as the PS360 version yet its sales have been wonderful. GH:WT will have all the features and great quality and mainstream backing it.

I think this is what devs need to realize that mainstream titles is what is going to do best on the Wii. And we already know there is a decent core base to save games like Zack and Wiki and Fire Emblem making it still an ideal console for core games as well. It's just I don't think many devs have realized this and I think the big realization is going to come this holiday season when the chart toppers for the Wii won't be nothing but Nintendo titles but have the likes of Call of Duty: World at War, Guitar Hero: World Tour, Rock Band 2, Madden 09, Tiger Woods 09, Shaun White Snowboarding, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Lego Batman, ect.

I mean it all seems so simple to us but for them I guess it just takes something as what Holidays 09 and Wii software will be... which will be none the less collosal. Especially in America.

You can check which games'll released in 2009 here ,many good games from 3rd parties're coming.
And i'm sure they'll be more in 2010.

I think next year we should be able to tell if the Wii is the next DS in getting 3rd parties aboard.