Good, but i can do one better:

Geist, anyone?

No. Think they published Zack and Wiki in Europe - didn't see any advertising for it and it bombed. Same with RE4 on the GC a few years ago, though I think that did OK.

It wouldn't have mattered 'cause it was first party

I liked Geist, dammit! >_<

Excitebots didn't do great and that even came bundled with a Wii Wheel. Neither did stuff like Battallion Wars Wii, so no, just being published by Nintendo isn't enough to sell games.

Though maybe Nintendo should invest a few bucks into a dev like High Voltage and beef up their budget. There probably is some potential there.

I see your pipe bomb and raise you an IED (Excitebots).

 So you're that second guy!

Geist was a damn good game.  Different and a lot of fun.  I loved that game.  Never heard about it.  A friend showed me his copy and asked me to help him through a certain level boss.  That thing that rolled in a circle.  I did that part, then kept the game to play through.  It was a lot of fun.

We would have heard nothing about it and had even less advertising making it sell even worse.

I doubt that. That's Nintendo 3rd parties making that stupid to decision. Like EA for example, they take a hardcore game (Madden 10, Dead Space: Extraction) then slap on a gimmick/casual interface to make it differently than everyone else. Then they'll get mad that the game doesn't sell well and say stuff like "there is no hardcore audience on the Wii."
I'm sorry folks but Dead Space is an on-rails shooters, aka a game that controls your motions because some people aren't good with multi-tasking.