Of those developers, I'd say Ubisoft is actually the one that matters the least for Wii owners (with EA being close but a bit better, and Capcom quite a lot better despite being far from perfect).

I personally think now is the time Nintendo needs a Yamauchi more than ever. Just embargo all third parties that don't pu serious effort in a game. Stop them from funding their HD games by stomping all over the Wii market.

The way I see it, this is good news that more and more 3rd parties are leaving the Wii and focusing on HD. Yeah you can give the doomsday theories that this will mean less and less quality games for Wii, but let's be honest here, were there ever really quality 3rd party games for Wii in the first place? Better to have fewer games and a few gems that stand out easier than a flood of shovelware that burries the few gems that there are.

In my opinion, a large reason as to why many good Wii 3rd parties don't sell is because the customers are suspicious of all the shovelware. The game simply gets buried in the amount of crap there is. Now I have been a big supporter of the PS2 ideology for game libraries that more games = better, because it offers more choices to the consumer. But the problem is the Wii is currently in overload, and after so much shovelware, you reach a certain point where it becomes more difficult for the average gamer to sift through the crap to find the gems.

I think slowly the Wii's library will begin to represent a more NES style library; somewhat less games, and a far greater ratio of quality ones, as more and more major 3rd parties get burned and "weeded out" with their shitty shovelware games and cheap ports. This will also set the table for aspiring smaller devs with TALENT on Wii developement who is more in tune with this new market to create better software for the platform, and who knows, maybe have a breakout hit.

Really, as long as I get the continued flow of quality titles from Nintendo, with at least a sprinkling of quality titles from 2nd and 3rd parties here and there, I will be a happy Wii gamer.

I'm not sure I can fully agree with you on this. Konami just put out Silent Hill on the Wii, which is slow out of the gate, but the buzz is building. SE has MH3 coming out in the West in the spring, a large budget title, Activision put out WaW and COD:Reflex. I don't get why you think this is not support?

Sega hasn't really said much of anything, as they are still putting games out for the Wii. Capcom's statement was from non-decision makers, so that leaves Ubisoft and EA as the only ones officially on record. Why are you trying to make it sound like the sky is falling for Nintendo?

If anything, look back to last gen, the lack of 3rd party support was very noticeable on the GameCube, and the companies scrambled back to Nintendo once they saw the Wii was selling like wild. Even if more 3rd parties drop Wii support, what's to say that they won't be flocking back to Nintendo's system next generation?

You sound very pessimistic on the topic, though it seems unwarranted. How many studios have shut down now because of their high budget HD games? The risk is more prevalent there with a lower chance of recovering investment.

What would be interersting is that the talk of going "HD only" might refer to inside knowledge of Nintendo's next system, as it does take 2-3 years to develop a game, implying a game for 2012-2013.

Well, maybe instead of shifting their focus to PS3/360, they should shift their focus away from mountains of shovelware on Wii/DS to giving quality support to both HD systems as well as Nintendo's systems? What's that, Ubisoft?

Too much like hard work?

Yeah... Thought so. Too many third parties view Wii market as being a place to exchange quick, cheap titles (mostly rubbish) for quick, easy cash. I'm glad it isn't working. I only hope that the quality Wii games coming out this year like NMH2 and Monster Hunter Tri get a good reception and make third parties realise that if time and effort goes into a Wii game, they'll get good results.

Failing that, as others have said, I think Nintendo need to expand and invest more in their first and second party portfolio. 2009 showed that too few third parties will pick up the slack when Nintendo step aside, and that every third party will complain when they have to compete with Nintendo's titles. It'll take time and money, but I think Nintendo need to expand how many quality titles and genres they can push out each year. Clearly third parties are not interested, and Nintendo should expand to take as big a piece of the pie as they can.

That is truly bizarre. Where games were 5 million to make last gen, they have now increased 12 times that? I think there is a lot of porkbarelling going on in the development fields, asking excessive amounts to develop games so they have the extra money in their studio ahead of time, as the royalty rates aren't in the developer's favor. Sure, conspiracy theory, but the only logical way I can see game development costing nearly that much.

While I don’t think that losing third party publishers is ever a particularly good thing, I do think there is some truth to the quantity of bad games on the Wii hurting the sales of better games. One thing I noticed awhile ago, but have been unwilling to do the research to see if it is (entirely) correct, is that the XBox 360 and PS3 have received far fewer games than the PS2 and XBox did and (as a result) with less competition the sales became more focused around a handful of titles which have seen much higher sales.

If companies like Ubisoft were planning on cutting back investment in the Wii by 25% while cutting back the number of Wii titles by 50%, and therefore invest 50% more on average per Wii title, I think it would be very good for both Ubisoft and the Wii; in contrast, what I expect to happen is Ubisoft will reduce investment in the Wii while maintaining the number of titles and the games will be of lower quality and sell worse.

Not now, the $60 million is Ubisoft's expectation for the next generation (the one which hasn't started yet).

In the current generation, most publishers cite an average budget of $20 million for PS3/360 games, which yes, is around 2-4 times more than in the last gen.

Obviously I think they're crazy if they think they can get the revenue to justify these development costs. Even if the retailer middlemen were completely eliminated through digital distribution, that would still not allow them to triple the development budgets.

^ This.

And a sprinkling of quality 3rd party titles will always exist, no matter what.

Well Ubisoft games for Wii weren't good ultimately... I mean, it was about time they stopped doing those casual games, last E3 was kind of humilliating, with all those awesome HD games and shameful Wii casual games... I'm glad we're getting Red Steel 2 and we've got many other excellent games from them such as Rabbids Go Home (which is selling quite good), but I want a bigger effort... How about a Wii version of the upcoming Splinter Cell? That would be awesome! or a Wii version of Assassin's creed, even the PSP's got a version... And I really hope the Wii version of the upcoming Prince of Persia isn't a PSP-like game, I wanna see my Wii using its whole potential!!!