mario kart wii sold enough to buy out his crummy company.

no i think it is the systems power.  Heck if I was a developer I would want my game to be the best it can be.  I would want amazing graphics, amazing AI, amazing physics, huge world, long game, voice acting, ect.  They look and see that the ps3/360 can make a much higher VISUALLY pleasing game.  And the easiest and the thing people seem to think is the most important is the visual part.  Its easiest to market, show, hype ect.  Showing some amazing graphics and special effects are easy to market. 

But does it make a better game.  Think of the star wars movies, the 1-3 are billion times better special effects and stuff but does that make them better movies.  Or the new indiana jones movie.  The original movies are so much better.  But special effects and graphics are so "cool" and everyone want sto do them. 

If you have an amazing game in mind would you rather it be some super high tech best looking game ever, or throw it on the wiiware/psn/live as a 2d game or whatever.  Developers are just being selfish, sooner or later the ceo and shareholders will be like "fucking get over making a pretty game and make one that sells for profit"

"Ah looks like typical 3rd party sales denial syndrom of Wii owners - when ID guy is perfectly right."

Ah, looks like a fanboy claiming something NPD debunked months ago, meaning you and the iD guy are perfectly wrong.

WoW, you seem to be the only one having trouble comprehending my post. You cherry picked one sentence and ignored the rest. You want to do that go ahead. I'm not going split hairs with one poster than didn't comprehend what I was trying say.

It's comforting to know the best you can manage is an insult instead of an actual response.

That's not an insult. That is an accusation of ignorance, which is not quite the same.

Regardless, the statement you keep insistiting means Madden isn't profitable does not. You are reading it wrong.

"... when a GTAIV or Madden title can't put your company in the black..."

I see the word "company" not making money, not "game" or "series", which is what would be required to mean the Madden series isn't making money. Since it is the latter word, it clearly does not mean it's claiming Madden isn't profitable.

WoW, if I was going to insult you. I would have been far more crass. Simply put. You were wrong about my post. You obviously aren't going admit that. So any further discussion would be pointless. You responded to one sentence in my post that you took out of context. When you are cornered you do what you always do, post sarcastic one liners.

Your trolling have failed.

I don't always post sarcastic oneliners and I did read your post.  Your point was that high development costs have made it prohibitively difficulty to turn a profit and you named companies like Midway and TakeTwo as victims of this and that even proven money-makers of the past haven't compensated for this.  Please don't ever assume I missed a point.

Now I will try and salvage the points I touched on in my last post and attempt to explain why they're related to your point.  Madden is an important part of this because it's profitable on all consoles (including HD AFAIK) and it's visually improved in most incarnations.  It's also important because it shows a very interesting trend--selling high on PS3/360/PS2 and low on the Wii.  The biggest share of the money it brings is on the consoles that according to your point should probably be the hardest to turn a profit on.

Now if Madden can turn a profit, why can't the rest?  In cases like GTA4, they simply overestimate sales and spend too much time in development.  In other cases, like I mentioned earlier, they pick the wrong system to put the game on.  In even more cases, they lack an essential element that give others an advantage (brand-name recognition, quality, etc).  Whatever the case, you can't always point at the same factor and use it to explain everything.

And I apologize for any hostility in my earlier posts.

I'd just say that one reason it's probably easier for a game like Madden to turn a profit, is that the base game just needs to be updated year after year. I doubt there is anything like a ground up version made after the first version of the game is made in any given generation. 

Pay your artists to update the player models, add some new players, take a few out, add a mode or two, change some stats and voila! Madden XX is ready.