And they say third parties don't sell on the Wii.

lol, no.  Not even close.  

It also wouldn't have gotten the sort of sweetheart deal Capcom rigged with Nintendo for the western release.  I'd say a lot of Nintendo securing DQ and MH had to do with promised western franchise expansion.

Yeah, I also want free online, or I'm not buying.

It's free every where except Japan which is why they wasn't looking for it to sell like the PSP ones:p

Pretty much this;)

This is a newbie question, but if Nintendo is publishing MHTri in the rest of the world, how much does Capcom get for having created the game? Obviously a smaller slice, but any idea what that roughly would be? Why would they have Nintendo publish it elsewhere? Is it because they want Nintendo to give it a marketing push they would not/could not afford to do? Can anyone explain this to me?

I don't think it has with affordability to do as much as Nintendo's pure skill in marketing. It's easy to point to their own franchises (Pokémon, Mario) and see how well-advertised they were with numbers to back it up.

But for a more recent example, take a look at the Professor Layton-series. Sold well in Japan to be sure, but once Level-5 gave Nintendo the rights to market it outside of Japan it became a massive phenomenon. Everyone realizes just how incredibly well Nintendo can market things. Of course, Capcom and Square, seeing this, leaped at the opportunity to get their Japan-centric franchises advertised by Nintendo. Monster Hunter has been around for about 5 years and sold horribly outside of Japan, and Dragon Quest has been around for over 20 years (!) and while it's always been a gigantic success in Japan, it's never posted impressive numbers anywhere else. But with Nintendo's help, it just might. It's not about the money, it's about the talent.

They simply see that, even if they get a smaller slice of the profits now, there will likely be so much more profit to get a slice off that it will give them a lot more money than advertising it themselves would.

funny how depending on how people want to see it flop or not they allow comparisons.  if you want gta china for ds to be a flop compare it to ps2 gta's.  if you want it to be a success then just look at sales.  if you want monster hunter to be a sucess, look at sales, or at previous console versions sales.  if you want it to be a flop, look at handhelds sales. 

whatever makes you people happy eh.

Haha, "Nintendo's pure skill in marketing," eh.

I'm anxious to see how well they perform. The games I'm thinking of that need the Japan -> West transition so far are MH3, DQIX / X, and Tomodachi Collection. Any more?

Not all games end up as hits, of course. Rhythm Heaven did so-so in the west, while Style Savvy did better (relative to Japan sales). I predicted MH and DQ would do well, so they better work their magic!

I don't see Dragon Quest ever breaking out in the West. Monster Hunter is a possibility, but I'm skeptical.