a thought i agree with. if what has been put out in 2009/2010 was put out in 2007 and 2008, i reckon each and every title could double its sales.

third parties took a year and a half holiday from the wii really, unaware of its popularity, and by the timne they started developing, to when the games went out, people had already lost interest.

not their fault necessarily in some respect considering they had all reently fled from the cube, but nonetheless that is another root cause,

and yes - i cant beleive the casual minigame market, if it truly exists can be happy with their collections. nor would they have the incentive to buy more than one or two games a year

The thing is that not supporting the Wii just raises costs. So even if the audience moved to the HD systems, there aren't enough to make the developers money.

And again, it's hard to tell if the crowd has moved on when most of the games the crowd would buy are not there, and the few that do are given almost not marketing (Call of Duty).

Somebody finally knows...

Well, there you go Procrastinato, more evidence from the other regions showing the games these guys make are just niche.

It's not even limited to their beat 'em ups either, as we all know how Okami performed.

Nice find SilentWolf.

One problem here is that the term quality is subjective. Furthermore I think a lot of gamers have a similar and biased idea of what a "quality" game is. For example a game about "Babiez" can't possibly be high-quality because it's not aimed at us.

I like the idea of job-based product development here. If I need a pickup truck a Bentley can never substitute for it, even if the pickup truck is a rusty old '78 of far inferior quality. The "job" that rail shooters are trying to do has already been done multiple times by high quality games, so it's the wrong job to be trying to do now. Games about babies do the job of

Marketing and marketability are important too. If I make a really high-quality 3D platformer about poo, who's going to buy it?

BTW, I still don't blame the rail shooter choice for Dead Space, because at the time of the choice it wasn't saturated. I do blame them for going for a slow-paced game with unskippable cut scenes. That killed my interest in the game.

My thoughts on Madworld, Zack & Wiki, etc.

First off, one of the main reasons these games don't sell is because they don't cater to the majority of Wii owners. People who bought the system to play together (Wii Sports...). These are all single player games. People who want single player games are better served with HD consoles. People buy Wii for multiplayer 'family' fun. Although it's a shame that so few of those 6.5m Zelda owners bought Okami.

Secondly, while people grew up with Mario & Sonic so they appeal to all ages, if you otherwise put cartoony characters in a game but give it complicated gameplay only adults would love it's a recipe for disaster. This has been done time and again on Wii from Opoona to Little King's Story. It looks like a good game for a child but it isn't, nor does it look like something Dad would want to play. Actually, Mario & Sonic almost never have complicated gameplay anyway.

Third, whatever made Sega think adults want M games with perfuse blood and more f-bombs than a biker fight is beyond me. Mature people generally want a deep and compelling story to go along with a bit of blood and appropriate swearing (and nudity). Again, a M game that Mom and Dad could play together and even in front of the kids, would sell a lot better.

Madworld's odd art style and over the top vulgarity and violence definitely made it niche, especially on Wii. But that's okay, there's a market for it. However, it was short and repetitive too. GREAT rental. Not really worth a purchase.

I think Suda51 is doing a great thing with No More Heroes 2 making the action and mini-games and such more arcady, more accessible and generally more fun. It'll still be lucky to make 500k but should sell even better than the original.

The other problem is the general public doesn't buy often so they stick to what they trust, which makes branding very important. Nintendo's brands (Mario, Zelda, Wii, Kirby, DK, etc) are well known. Licensed brands do well on Wii from Lego SW to Hanna Montana to Monopoly (which are all multiplayer too btw). These quality games have no such recgonition making sales even more difficult.

@Gamerace

Dead on about MadWorld. I played that in front of my girlfriend once. Never again...

It's about time someone came out and said it, even if no one else will.

MadWorld just wasn't a good game. Too short, too edgy-highschool-dropout, too simplistic.

Dead Space? Anyone here remember before it was announced it would be on rails? Remember the hype it was getting, remember the excitement? I've never seen a game thrown from the hype train so fast since Daikatana.

And as far as ports or things released much later, here's a good example of a great game released much later:
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Bioshock&console=&publisher=&genre=&minSales=0&results=50&sort=Total

OH GEE I GUESS THIS MEANS PS3 OWNERS DON'T WANT BIOSHOCK 2!

I pine for the day when there is a shining example of Wii 3rd party success for M-rated, or even T-rated games, so the lame excuses will cease.