I think there is still potential for the Wii to revive the console market in Japan to at least reasonably healthy levels. 

It was selling fine before they half assed Animal Crossing (big mistake) and then got stuck with nothing to release for the first half of 2009. 

They still have Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, Monster Hunter 3, Dragon Quest X (which probably also brings other DQ Remakes with it), and some Nintendo IPs (Pikmin, Donkey Kong, etc.) left to play and a 8 million existing userbase. 

So it's not exactly like Nintendo is sitting at the table with a terrible hand, all things considered. 

Plus they still can cut the price if all else fails.

Not to mention Nintendo has not played the hardware/controller colors card and software/hardware bundle (ahem Monster Hunter 3) card in Japan either. 

They did "half-ass" Animal Crossing. They were probably just trying to see how far they could get by with such efforts,maybe doing more minimal games in the future, but the gaming world saw right through that.

AC sold a lot, but it didn't have a popular impact.

It's like I stepped into a warzone. So I'm going to hit a few points while I'm here:

- I'm impressed by MHG numbers, I had lower expectations after reading Source's predictions for 100k first week. It almost did 100k first day. Monster Hunter generally has legs too, and with the MH3 demo being the main selling point, the more Capcom hypes MH3 to its eventual release, the more people may buy MHG to sample MH3 before the real deal comes along.

- Bayonetta will not have great numbers in Japan. I just don't see it getting close to DMC4, and that game's numbers weren't that great in the first place.

- The 2nd half of 2009 line up argument: I think the Wii beats the PS3 here, especially with variety and originality.

I think this thread needs to be closed.. its starting to get out of hand.

Yeah it will be interesting to see if the MHG community starts to grow as the number of online users playing MH on Wii increases week to week. 

That could give it some decent legs.

Monster Hunter games on consoles do not have legs. MH2 on PS2 debuted at 368,000 as per Famitsu, and managed 576,000 LTD. Not really great legs. Of course, the PSP games have had phenominal legs.

WOW really low.

20k first day for Killzone 2 isn't that low. It's higher than I was expecting considering Japan's treatment of shooters in the past.