I think the most important thing to get out of this is this statement (not direct quote):

"If you don't succeed on a video game, the only one at fault is you".

I've found it quite irresponsible and disrespectful that publishers and developers would even dare blame the user base for some of the failures or not living up to expectations of their video games. The failure of any product is always the one who created the product. Excuse can be thrown out left and right but the blame is still on you. Whether quality wasn't high enough (as this guy said) or marketing wasn't there (main problem with Wii 3rd party games) it's still the publishers fault. Blaming the users only pisses them more off and it is just bad PR. When Nintendo can go out there and get 10 million people to buy a game in 7 weeks (even if the brand is Mario) that shows that it is not the fault of the user base.

"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."

Monster Hunter 3 hasn't stopped it.

Quite an accurate statement, Zucas.

But Nintendo failed - well, failed a little - with Wii Music. I noticed that Miyamoto never blamed the public for this unsuccess. He said " Well, if Wii Music didn't work, I guess there's something we missed on"

True, Nintendo is a first party publisher, but as a direct competitor of Sony and Microsoft, their attitude is quite responsible. When third party publishers will stop crying like babies because their games don't sell and think twice about the real MAIN problem - they should more study the market - then they will find the problem. Casual people are not specially buying shovelware (certainly not!), because core games like Smash Bros, Galaxy stand among great successes because they are appealing.

Third party publishers just have to find what's "appealing to the mass" with their games. An example of potential is the Call of Duty series. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is now at 670 000 copies sold throughout Europe and NA, with no marketing and directly the same day of the big launch of Modern Warfare 2. Guess what? that's excellent. I hope Activision understands the message, because there is potential to sell with the mass.

And for God's sake, the Wii userbase is nearly 66 million. If your game don't sell, you should question yourself about the quality of the game and the strategy you took to make it appealing.

When they will think like Nintendo, they will make a big step forward. That is why Nintendo is still living for more than 25 years.

Of course, but it doesn't count because it was in Japan. :P 

And how big is the userbase of the Wii compared to the GC? GC sold 21.74m worldwide, the Wii has sold 65m worldwide to this date. So the Wii userbase is 3 times bigger NOW (and continuing) than GC's userbase ever was. So of course there are more people out there to buy your games. Viewtiful Joe could've have 3x its sales if it had been released on the Wii right now. There are NO excuses for the lack of quality 3rd party games being sold on the Wii. imho, no excuse.

It seems the majority of Wii-owners only want "kiddy games", party games and QUALITY 1st party titles. All quality 3rd party efforts (quality for me) has failed miserably imo (No more heroes, Muramasa, Little Kings Story, A Boy and His Blob, Silent Hill: SM (fairly new game though), Okami, Zack & Wiki, Madworld, etc)... I am not bashing the Wii here, because it got a bunch of quality 1st AND 3rd party games, but to me it seems the majority of Wii owners just don't buy too many different games. They got their MAJOR SELLING 1st party titles, but compared to consoles sold, they should be selling a lot more games overall, no? Or am I just very wrong here? What is the attach rate on the Wii? Don't misunderstand, the Wii sells software alright, but it seems it only sells "those few top-sellers" if you understand what I'm saying.

edit: found the tie ratios and all, no prob. I really have to give it to 360 gamers. You guys buy A LOT of games!! Amazing! PS3 users: Shame on you, buy more games!

How do you explain the GC versions of Viewtiful Joe outselling the PS2 versions then, if userbase size is all that matters?

Same goes for Okami, the Wii version beats the PS2 version with half the userbase.

But no, it's just the Wii that has this problem...

Be carefuly with the tie ratios, the X360 has had a years extra to get a higher tie ratio. The actual amount of software sold monthly over the current hardware base is similair for all 3. Take a look here

As for the wii titles you mentioned take a look at titles which can be compared to them and you will see they mostly havent done badly. And have good reasons when they did do badly:
No More Heroes - Suda 51's best selling title
Little King Story and Zack and Wiki - Mixed message product confusing the market
Madworld - Comparitive to GodHand which it outsold well
Okami - Outsold PS2 version (using a much smaller userbase)
A boy and his Blob - Great game but who is the market? Advertising and so on?
Murumasa - a very niche game

So if the companies were expecting these to sell more then they are to blame. They needed to do their target market research and also proper targetted advertising.

Good games sell is a little bit too simple. A game needs three things to succeed on any platform. It needs to be well made, marketable, and fun. If a game only has two of those qualities it will have a tough time selling, and with only one it will most likely fail.

Many of these poor selling Wii games are both well made and fun, but not marketable. It's hard for us to tell what's marketable because we're the enthusiasts, we know about all the games. Marketability also should include how much it is marketed too, now that I think about it.

A game that appeals to the average consumer, is well made (easy to play and bugfree), and is fun to play (to the average consumer again) has no reason to fail. If your game doesn't match those criteria you did something wrong. What succesful games don't match that criteria?

That's not true, and it never has been in the history of video games. But there is a lot of truth in the crtisism towards 3rd party effords on the Wii. Still doesn't mean a good game will give you good sales, though.

i agree, the true test will be its western performance. if it doesnt clear a milion in the west lts...then id be disappointed.