The title should read: Sega's determined to find the Wii's core market and is on crack.

I could be wrong, but I suspect Sega (and probably many other third party publishers) have moved into a more experimental phase and are looking to create the new IPs that will be important in the next generation. When you sit down and crunch the numbers, it really doesn’t make sense to try new IPs on the HD consoles in large numbers because the high development costs make it too risky ... Games like MadWorld and No More Heroes sold at a level (and were close to breaking even or profitability) where HD games have bankrupted studios.

If given enough tries studios like Platnium Games/Clover Studios will eventually create a game that is a multi-million selling franchise that can be milked for high profit; the reason for focusing these kinds of efforts on the Wii is if it takes 10 games to get to get to this point it makes more sense to be 50,000 to 100,000 units short of breaking even per title rather than 500,000 to 1,000,000 units short per title.

Sega + SUDA 51= best hardcore wii game ever?

As someone who usually buys games online I was quite shocked buy the Wii product on the shelf in my local gaming store thise week. Shelves and shelves of "pre-owned" rubbish, shelves and shelves of shovelware......while many of the quality Wii games were missing from their shelves entirely.

Unless the makers of hardcore games are willing to pay for the shelfspace and advertising..I can't see how those games will ever sell. The games will just get lost in the flood.

Yeah, I've pretty much stopped looking in stores for the games I want.  They are usually not there, and when they are, they are more expensive.

Its good to know Sega is good friends with Nintendo. I appreciate Mario vs. Sonic its nice.

Unfortunately what you are bringing up is the whole vicious circle / catch 22 of it all.

The games dont appear on the shelves, so dont sell, and because they dont sell, they dont get shelf space. which then leads to the next similar title also getting no shelf space and so not selling etc etc.so it is most definately both a cause and an effect.

My concern is that the cycle can not now be stopped, the wii's repuatation regarding these games and the wii user base have now completely gone down the toilet other than the 500,000-600,000 left of us in 2009 willing to repeatedly buy wii core titles. (that seems to be what all the 2009 core games seem to have the potential to sell over a year)

I hope that the next big games to come out, with established names, may change that in 2010, and maybe people will actually look at the wii and think...actually, id quite like to play that...and while im at it, look at all these other games that have cropped up in the past year id also like to play...and look, there are a couple coming up which also look pretty good too...

Things like Monster Hunter tri, Red Steel 2, Silent Hill: shattered memories, no more heroes 2 and maybe even final fantasy...may well hold that appeal that may attract the PS360 crowds, and so i hope that these games will see the regular 500,000 wii customers buying it, and maybe also another 500,000 from the ps360 boys.

It might turn the repuatation and store space issues around, which could well be the turning point for getting figures closer to the 1,000,000 mark again.

It can't be done with new titles. I think it has to be an already established series.

and this is fine for those who follow the wii and games closely on line, but to the HUGE amount of consumers that still regularly use stores to purchase games and browse for something to buy, it simply means these games go unnoticed, and the reputation of the wii is tarnished even further because the MILLIONS of people, hardcore and otherwise who enter a game shop only ever see non-core material on the wii, cementing its repuation as a console without core appeal. so they walk on by to the ps3 shelf instead and pick up batman or something

Without store space and advertising, a publisher may as well halve its sales expectations.

Dead space and metroid are the best examples so far in london. They may as well be downloadable games as they simply do not exist in physical form in London.

so if sega want to crack this area of the wii user base, they really need to work on retailers and their own advertising and marketing in general.

If not for that, what exactly else is a publisher there for?

"so if sega want to crack this area of the wii user base, they really need to work on retailers and their own advertising and marketing in general.

If not for that, what exactly else is a publisher there for?"

Good point. Although creating demand is a good way to get retailers to stock more. That happened with No More Heroes.