The problem is not price -- it is quality.

Many developers seem to decided not to do the same level of work on the Wii than on the other consoles. For example, look at what Activision has for the Xbox 360/PS3 and then look what it has for the Wii. (And this is not always a technical-based decision. For example, 2K dropped Civilization Revolution on the Wii but released an Xbox 360 version, even though that game that may have been most interesting to the Wii secondary demographic -- older, returning gamers.)

This is because profits must be shown now rather than long-term. So while Wii games often sell for longer periods of time, they do not always sell as quickly out of the gate. Thus, big budget games appear to flop while $30 titles sell quick and then die quicker.

Raising the price will only exacerbate this situation -- and with first-party titles being only $50, it makes that much more difficult to go higher.

Mike from Morgantown

Nintendo makes more than a healthy profit on $50 games, so 3rd party companies would just be committing suicide by trying to charge $10 more as users will just buy the cheaper and just as good Nintendo 1st party titles.

Ok I already posted, but I reread it all and I'm confused:

RAISING the price of 3rd party games will increase their quality!?

WTF!?

most wii games aren't worth $49.99 and you want me to pay an extra $9.99 f that

For right now, it very well could be, but that assumes that your solution (raise prices) is the only solution.

Games don't profit at $50/unit to a demographic (which is not the overall ownership) base smaller than what the PS360 have.  That's the problem.  The budget for those games has to be small to compensate.  Budget is the most reliable indicator of eventual game quality -- obviously there are many exceptions, but there are no other factors, other than developer rep (and reputable devs usually demand a high budget..), that are a good estimator of game quality for a publisher.

If you research your history of development, one bigh reason that MH3 was moved from the PS3 to the Wii because of the differential in development costs.

In other words, your assumption that development on the Wii is as costly as development on the PS3 and Xbox 360 is generally not true. There have been many threads about this. But the difference is usually put at between 25% and 33% -- much more than the 17% difference in prices points.

Mike from Morgantown

So... you think Wii games should be lowered to $20, and that will make them higher quality?

Procrastinato, this is not how reducto ad absurdum works.

I admit the emphasis in his second sentence was very peculiar, but you know that he was not suggesting that prices should be lowered.

MH3 is a minor upgrade of the MH2 engine from the PS2.  Moving MH2 to the Wii, and enhancing it, was easier than greatly enhancing the engine and moving to the PS3/360.  It has nothing to do with the Wii, per se, and everything to do with code re-use from the last generation.

Your bolded comment above, is manufactured.  I have never said that its not true.  I have always said that it *is* true, and that's why Wii games are low quality.  Pretty big difference.

Not taking the sum total picture in account is your argument's major flaw.  Not only is the per-unit price a problem, but the untargettable demographics are a serious, serious issue.  You can't deny that games like CoD:WaW, or The Conduit, are good games... yet they didn't hit anywhere near the HD numbers for those titles, or like titles.

I'm suggesting that the demographic issue is not fixable.  The price point one, is.