I think Nintendo hopes Monster Hunter 3 will be that breakthrough game, hence them marketing and promoting the game outside Japan.

I totally agree on this one--I agree with the whole lot of it, but this in particular.  It seems like such a stupid plan, to put the "real" games on the HD consoles while making spin-offs for the Wii, wouldn't the people who want the spin-offs the most be the same people who flock to the real games?  Putting the real games on the HD consoles lures the fans to those systems, and the spin-offs are left to die, forced to compete against the very games that create the audience that the spin-offs are supposed to tap into; Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles' biggest competition isn't NSMBWii, WiiFit Plus, or even Silent Hill Shattered Memories, it's Resident Evil 5.

It seems like game developers just expected everyone to buy both: an HD console for serious gaming, and a Wii for all the weird quirky stuff that just wouldn't work on the HD consoles.  Instead of trying to please everyone, they pidgeonhole the consoles.  Personally, I have a Wii and PS3, but I almost never play the later, so I consider myself a Wii owner; when Capcom released Street Fighter IV, I knew I wanted it, but I also knew I wouldn't be playing it too much, so I bought it used at less than half-price (most of the time I just ignore what's on the PS3); if it was on the Wii, I'd be playing it all the time, and would have bought it new, at full price.  Tatsunoko vs. Capcom?  Imported it from Japan, and am buying it when it comes out in America.  Technically, the one coming out this month is more of a "Super" Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and not quite the same game, with new characters and all.

On a side note, I feel the exact same way about Soul Calibur as you.  I loved Soul Calibur II, and was angry when Namco made SCIII a PS2 exclusive, which made less sense considering how well the GameCube version sold.  Then we get Soul Calibur Legends, a cheap hack and slash game, which as far as I can surmise, was made using the money Namco set aside to port Soul Calibur IV to the "Revolution", which Namco thought would be HD as well.  Then, they go through the trouble of creating a version of SC for the PSP, and they couldn't even be bothered to create a Wii version of that.  Of all the fighting games, Soul Calibur seems like it would be the perfect fit for the Wii; the two main attacks are horizontal and vertical strike, and it's blatently obvious how that would work.

A lot of third parties are left scratching their heads over New Super Mario Bros. Wii, either unable to understand how this "lazy" game is selling, or too scared of the competition to realize what a great lesson can be learned from it.  Mario used to be massive, SMB3 and SMW each sold around 20 million, but Mario 64 dropped to the low teens, and Sunshine and Galaxy failed to crack 10M.  Nintendo spent the last decade trying to fix 3D Mario, while gamers simply didn't like 3D Mario, they wanted 2D Mario; Nintendo was following preconceived notions that 3D was better, or at least as good as 2D, and that 3D Mario had to be better than 2D Mario.  When Nintendo finally made a new 2D Mario, sales shot through the roof and NSMB on the DS also sold 20M, leading to NSMBWii.

There are two morals to this story: if you follow preconceived notions, as opposed to giving your fans what they really want, you will fail; and if you give the fans what they want, you will be rewarded, even being forgiven for past mistakes.  Nintendo learned this the hard way; third parties can learn it the easy way by studying Nintendo, or the hard way by making the same mistake and failing, over and over.

"Nintendo spent the last decade trying to fix 3D Mario, while gamers simply didn't like 3D Mario, they wanted 2D Mario; Nintendo was following preconceived notions that 3D was better, or at least as good as 2D, and that 3D Mario had to be better than 2D Mario."

My solution, make the 3D games play like the 2D games. If there is a field, you don't have Mario spend 30 seconds to get to the other side. The 2D games didn't work that way. You put pits, blocks, and plenty of enemies as obstacles to the other side. And it's about getting from point A to point B, with only a few secrets to find. You don't replay the level multiple times from the MacGuffins.

In essence, treat 3D as just an extra dimension to the 2D gaming.

I believe that's what Nintendo was trying to do, adding elements of the 2D games back into the 3D ones, like those weird stages in Sunshine where you lose FLOOD and are just jumping over floating blocks to reach the goal.  But some things just don't work, like jumping on enemies; without a homing function, jumping on a goomba in 3D is harder than 2D, and don't event talk to me about trying to jump on a chain of enemies.

I think that a straight-up "get to the end" 3D platformer would have been better than what they were doing, what Malstrom refers to as "star finder Mario", but some people just want 2D platforming, and they will only be satisfied by a 2D platformer.

Yeah, the gameplay would have to be tweaked (especially for the camera), but the overall level flow is vastly different, which is what I meant. Even those Sunshine areas were not this.

This sounds a lot like a few of the levels in Galaxy.  Even then, it didn't sell all that well compared to other Mario games.

I think 2D Mario is just more accessible than 3D Mario.  It is just so easy to understand run and jump, while bigger worlds and exploration elements coupled with more complicated controls start to turn people away.

"This sounds a lot like a few of the levels in Galaxy."

A few? Wasn't it clear I mean all?

I'm just saying that is how some of the levels in Galaxy were designed.  It seemed relevant, and it had not been mentioned yet.

Then if they fit what I mean (I don't have a copy yet, but want to), then that's a good template to make a true 2D to 3D Mario platformer.