@Soriku: High Voltage Software is making The Conduit, would you not buy the game because of their previous release record? Or will you give the game a chance because the concept seems cool and the game has effort put into it?

Granted Captain Rainbow doesnt seem very high budget but still, neither were Wii Fit or Big Brain Academy for that purpose. I suspect this was one of their last cancelled GC projects, that saw the green light at Nintendos HQs and was released just because.

The problem is not the budget, or the developer... It's the style of the game that classifies it as "niche"...

BTW, this game has any form of english subtitles? =(

Heh heh, negative Wii sales confirmed.  I guess that guy knew what he was talking about.

This game bombed? It is selling at about what I would expect. Why is it people feel the need to arbitrairily assign a number of copies a game must sell to be considered successful. If you expected much better than what it got then your expectations were unreasonable imo. This was clearly a throw away game done as a pet project of a developer who knew enough of the right people to get it approved.

@Soriku: God forbid Nintendo tries out something different. They should just focus on shooters then. Everything else is "quirky", but Wii Fit, Wii Play arent? When things favour someones arguement I can see theres so much spin, its not even funny. Look at Fate/Tiger on the PSP... Its a porn game, yet it sold 5 times better than Captain Rainbow. Wasnt Smash Bros quirky also? Arent Starfy, Mother, Kirby and a thousand other franchises quirky also?

And here you are admitting the game got no advertisment and no previous info. Those are the main reasons for its failure.

@Gnizmo: Why did the previous Skip games opened significantly better with a much smaller userbase? Gnizmo, you tell me, did you expect an old western shooter to perform better than a Japanese oriented game made by Nintendo? If you did, you may want to quit these conversation as you clearly know nothing about the Japanese gaming market.

You seem so sure this was a pet project, link? I dont think Nintendo likes to throw money away to give Skip, a secondary dev team, money to produce something that no one would buy. The closest it can get to there, is that the game was a canceled GC game that was released to recoup some of the losses. No pet project crap, thats really dumb.

I think it's more realistic to say that the game bombed because it's weak and and nobody knows who the target audience is supposed to be.

All the advertising in the world can't save this one. 

 The revious Skip games probably opened better because they were in a more popular genre and had a better budget. Of course that is a ridiculous comparison anyways. Did Mario Kart Wii bomb because it sold less than Wii Play?

 I also don't see how this is a japanese oriented game. All I see is a bunch of quircky humor, and cameos of obscure characters that starred in Nintendo games from long ago. Just because a game is quircky does not automatically make it "japanese oriented." Looking at the games graphics and what I know of the gameplay I would easily expect it to sell less than a western shooter. I would also argue that my expecting to to sell the way it did would show a greater understanding of the Japanese market than you have. With a greater understanding comes better predictions after all.

 The reason I am so certain is because of how radically different this game is compared to other Nintendo titles. You prove Birdo is a girl by getting her used vibrator and bringing it to the police. When was the last time you saw anything close to that controversial in a Nintendo project? There is also the fact that it is well known that Nintendo will fund pet projects to help back my point. Super Smash Brothers was a throw away pet project being worked on by two people for the longest time.

 But feel free to ignore all logic and evidence that dares to run counter to the things you know for certain with absolutely no evidence to back it. This game had no budget what-so-ever and had the C-team of graphical artists which clearly means it was meant to be the next Wii Fit.

Lolz.

A game that's not supposed to sell big numbers?  How does that work then?

If it's not supposed to sell big numbers, it looks like this game is going to be a roaring success!!!

Also, the game has had marketing. 

It is advertised in Famitsu (at the very least) and it is advertised on TV too.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ITBhFYu-s

 By having a low budget so the desired return on investment can be attained with fewer sales. It is an extremely simple concept to grasp and is seen in every industry known to man.Bigger numbers are always better but you don't need big number to get the desired results.

One thing to remember is Wii game shave better legs. While this will probably sell less then Chibi-Robo week 1, it may sell better overall. Look at Wario. A game that only pushed about 25k the first week is almost at 100. This game may continue to sell. Day 1 means very little on the Wii.