Yep, but they are just that.. exceptions.  The typical 3rd party HD game costs about $20-25 million, to my knowledge, and that's the total cross-platform cost.  $30 million is pushing it to the limits of profitability, and publishers don't like to go there unless they think the franchise is justified in doing so.  On top of that, sequels cost substantially less, and the HDs are teeming with sequels (because the games were good to begin with).

That's another thing the HD consoles have going for it -- or, conversely, what the Wii would have had going for it, if 3rd party publishers had invested more in the beginning (and perhaps Nintendo had lowered licensing fees) -- sequels.  "Part 2" and "Part 3" are usually radically more profitable than "part 1" ever is, unless the game engine came from another franchise, or was licensed from a middleware developer.  Yet another hurdle for new IPs to leap, to make it into the bigtime -- and installments in "stock" franchises don't seem to have been overly high-revenue on the Wii to date.  To my knowledge, there also isn't as much middleware available on the Wii as the HDs -- which is a HUGE factor for small dev teams.

EA makes great games, but the Wii audience likes to play as cute lil mascots.

But that's still a hell of a lot more than $12 million or less for a major third party Wii game.

You'd think so, but when you factor in the raw unit sales and per unit revenue, the Wii somehow comes out behind.  In order to make better Wii games, you have to hike the price as well -- which gets you into new, unknown territory.  

Nintendo's own successes don't really count as such, from the 3rd party perspective, since Nintendo both benefits from no licensing fees (which is a big chunk of the revenue), and from long standing franchises (which is huge huge huge), as well as pre-existing engine technology and tools (from the GameCube architecture), and direct access to internal support.

The only figure I have for a Nintendo 1st party game is SuperMario Galaxy at ~$25 million. Super Smash Brothers Brawl might have been around there as well.

As for sequels, almost every "casual/mini-game compilation/puzzle/alternative" game on the Wii that has sold worth a damn has had a sequel; which usually sells less than the last entry. Look at MySims, Game Party, Boom Blox, Dance Dance Revolution, etc.

EA CEO John Ricitiello said in January 2009: "Development is typically a third to a fourth as much for a Wii game then it is for a PS3 or an Xbox 360 game. That is really a function of the capacity of the hardware, and the fact that it is not a high-definition gaming box, so we're producing less art than for high-definition games.

Making games multiplatform actually costs more money, so the creators of a title wish to receive their money back from sales on the secondary console, whether PS3 or 360. The increase isn't usually too large though; but these titles still venture into the $26 million range.

Provide some examples.  Aside from Battlefield, Henry Hatsworth and Sim City, I don't see EA making that many great titles.

And really now, anyone who uses the 'Wii = kiddy games' argument like its a fact should just give up before they even try.  Might I remind you that EA is probably one of, if not the biggest perpetuator of 'lil mascots' in the gaming world.

A Message to EA:

When your potential customers say "We don't want another on rails shooter" or "We don't want a 'Cartoon' Madden game" maybe you should listen to them. Maybe when you were making games like NHL 07 - 09 and Mercenaries 2 for the PS2 you could have at least considered porting these games to the fastest selling console of all time. Maybe, just maybe, your lack of success has more to do with the poor effort you have put forward and your trusting of the stereotypical-assumptions of the managment that was unable to predict the success of the Nintendo DS and the Wii.

lol.  You sound as retarded as EA now.

Here's the big strategy with selling games on the Wii. It's actually very simple:

Copy Nintendo.

What's EA's highest selling Wii game? EA Active. A very good example of copying Nintendo.

What is the highest selling third-party game? Mario and Sonic at the Olympics. They even went so far as to get Mario characters into the game.

What kind of third party games sell on the Wii? Games that copy Wii Sports and Wii Play.

I'm not kidding, this is the best strategy. Find out what Nintendo is doing next and copy them.

Or maybe, just maybe, their Wii games are performing lower than they thought they would. Just another option to  the Wii games cost about 2 unicorn farts to make.