Doing the original game is ridiculously expensive, yes, but porting from one HD system to another means you can keep nearly 100% of the artwork and textures. With a Wii version you'd have to do all that again which is where the expense comes from. This is especially true if you look at the tech vids of Cryengine 3 where they can make all 3 versions (PC, 360 & PS3) at the sametime (it's actually quite impressive). Can't do that with the Wii, it'd require the textures and artwork to be re-done.

Of course, if you make an exclusive Wii game, then it's a lot cheaper than the HD games.

Redoing the artwork wouldn't cost more than making the artwork for the HD systems. That was the claim I called you on. You would have to do them over, but at Wii level costs, not HD level costs.

Converting textures down to Wii levels is not hard at all. All you have to do is convert bitmap to a vector image and resize it down. Converting images for Wii is not hard. The hard part is that you can't waste as much resources on the Wii so you have to do more than just resize down the textures for the game to look good. You have to actually use the TEV and use the per pixel effects on the wii so that the textures don't look pixelated or flat. The wii can do effects like emboss just like on the gamecube and add enough detail to models with shaders. The wii just doesn't have it coded into hardware so you'd have to spend resources generating the effects other consoles come with.

The wii doesn't need HD it would just be a waste of resources. The wii would benefit more from a detailed texture and per-pixel effect engine to make sure games use all of the pixels efficiently at 480p.

So which engines do that? Does the Quantum 3? The Wii specific CoD4 engine?

No engine so far does it all the time. Super Mario Galaxy, Monster Hunter Tri, Resident Evil Darkside, The Conduit show good effects sometimes but its not consistent enough. Texturing is hard on the Wii becuase you get better effects from using detailed mapping techniques but then have to use prerendering at times.

Consistent detail through graphics engines is missing on the Wii.

Maybe this will help

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtNKJBh-XO0

Okay, I'll give an example.

Say there are 10 million software units sold on "N"'s platform each year.  N gets $10 licensing fee from each one.  That's $100 million in revenue, with no cost-of-goods, or development costs, to get in the way of making a profit.

Say there are 10 software publishers, each selling 1 million software units, at $30 revenue (cost to retailers).  Removing the $10 licensing fee, and the cost of goods (lets say ~ $7, although I'm actually using an average c-o-g from DS games here.. I don't know what a Wii game is.. it might be a little cheaper), that yields $13 net (maximum) from each unit sold.  That's $13 million net total.  

Now you have to remove the development costs for EACH one of the titles sold in that group that sold 1 million units total.  If it was one game, and the average cost is $5 million to develop, you've got ~$8 million net profit.  If it was 2 games, at $5 million each, now you've got only $3 million profit... see where I'm going with this?

Nintendo has claimed that the Wii was WAY more titles (both in number made and number sold, but the number sold isn't as proportionately great as the number made is) for the Wii each year than the HDs do.. and that's true.  That's great for Nintendo, because that means more licensing money for them, but since the sales for individual titles aren't stellar, that's a horrid statistic for 3rd parties making the games.  

Individual titles do best when targetted at a specific demographic -- which is the crux of the problem with the Wii.  Who cares that a Wii game costs $5 million to develop, compared to a HD cost of $20 million, when the $20 million investment nets you 9 million unit sales on the two HD titles, and the $5 million nets 1.5 million unit sales on the Wii title, and at a lesser revenue per unit, to boot?  Each dollar spent on the HD consoles, in this example, nets 1.5x as much revenue (actually more like 2.0x, because the of the revenue per unit difference).

Every dollar spent on successful, demographically targetted games performs better.  Plain and simple.

EDIT: By the way, the shovelware titles bring the Wii development average way down.  The cost of making games, like the ones Reggie wants, is probably closer to half what the HD version costs.

That only means Nintendo gets money from third parties, and you seem to forget the other first parties can do exactly the same thing, while providing no proof anyway, just speculation.

I'm not speculating, and yes, the other first parties benefit in the same way from licensing fees.

I'm talking about why 3rd parties shy away from the Wii.  Don't turn this into a Sony-MS-Nintendo business model comparison -- it's not.

But what you described is not a pyramid scheme.

And if it applies to the other two, it's not a reason. Unless the third parties are stupid enough to think it's somehow bad to do the very same thing with the Wii.

If you don't understand what I wrote a few posts above, I don't think you can ever understand the reasons why 3rd parties don't like the Wii.

Its simple numbers and profit-making.  Its not as shallow as "costs less to develop for, thus it must be better", it just isn't, and I describe why above, pretty clearly, I think.