That's a good link

Though it's sort of ironic how it points out that the game is an anomaly in terms of HD budgets

Well... okay then.

I lose.

Did not know how top heavy the 3rd party software for the Wii was

At the time, it was, because it used a pre-existing engine, which most HD games, to that point, hadn't had the advantage of.

The "is" in your statement above, should read "was".  That article wasn't written yesterday... that's my point.

Yeah obviously the fact that companies are losing money in the worst recession in decades is proof positive that their big problem is that they have an anti-wii bias. Clearly the problem is companies aren't producing enough wii games that look worse than their HD counterparts and have fewer features, or aren't producing higher quality mini-game collections.

All the solutions I hear for what 3rd parties need to do seem nonsensical. They start with 1.Shift support from HD machines to Wii 2. Make core games that look inferior to their HD counterparts and have fewer features due to the wii's hardware and software limitations (IE friend codes, lack of unified online network, size limitations on Downloadable content ect), and then spend tons of money marketing them. And 3.Get with the market trends and make better "family friendly" games. Which, lets be honest, not even Nintendo fanboys want a market of high quality carnival games.

These aren't viable solutions. If they do (1) then they are getting behind on the technological arms race. As they develop for higher end machines they come up with better methods, better understanding of the technology, and new development tools to use. Without that development gets more expensive, not less, especially as technology marches on and they are left generations behind those that actually invested in higher end development.  They can shift some support, but for every developer/programmer they put on the wii, that is one less person on their staff that is learning how to use or developing the newest advances in programming and development tools. In the long run they shoot themselves in the foot.

(2) doesn't work because people have eyes and memories. They are aware that games can have more than 12 people playing online at once, and that friend codes are ass. The conduit didn't work, not because it wasn't advertised, or because of poor art direction, but because people that want to play that kind of game can play it better elsewhere. Trying to make HD style games on the wii is met with lukewarm reception because we've seen better now. Giving something second rate doesn't cut it when you know that it could have more features and look better. That's why Dead Space was an on rails shooter, otherwise the inevitable comparison's to it's HD big brother would be incredibly unflattering. You could just say "well screw everybody that pays attention to gaming, that's only a minority of several million compared to the wider audience." Well, that includes you pal, you're calling for the destruction of your own culture and the willful jump backwards in computer and programming technology so that you don't have to shell out  200-300 dollars for another system. Saying that 3rd parties should willfully march backwards and work ever harder on the future of gaming that is the wii-mote is not a valid or sane criticism.

and (3) Does anybody here REALLY want that reality, or is it just a snarky way of blaming third parties for not putting more polish on their shovelware titles? Would an extra coat of polish on Imagine Party Babiez (which has sold 250k) really make a difference? The market for these games don't give a rats ass about the quality of them, and flooding the market with more of them isn't going to help anyone.

Simply saying "Try harder on wii, people will buy it, look at Resident Evil 4!" is not a valid criticism of third parties. It's easy to be an Armchair CEO, but It is a complex and difficult situation with the wii. Regardless of the tac you take, there is going to be a downside, and reprecussions and viewing their financial woes as "well obviously they are losing money because they made an onrails shooter for wii instead of a third person shooter" is daft and simplistic, especially with the world economy the way it is right now. Clearly it has nothing to do with the rising costs to get health insurance for all of it's employees, cautious investors, currency exchanges, inflation, or any of the major things that go into the cash flow of giant corporations. It's because Madworld was a niche product. The solutions to their complex problems aren't going to be discovered by a bunch of forum dwellers complaining that the wii isn't getting a proper Final Fantasy. Running a multibillion dollar corporation isn't as easy as it looks to some people here.

Gears is the exception... Engine costs = zero (it was already developed and no licensing involved), and it was partly outsourced to Epic China.

Before I even attempt to read the rest of your post, I have to point out that the recession is a red herring in this argument.

Publishers were already losing money before the recession started, development costs as well as revenue has been rising since the beginning of the generation... just costs have been rising faster.

There are lots of industries that can attribute their losses mostly to the recession, but the gaming industry is not one of them...

Yes but do you know why exactly ? Which game made how much loss for them how much of the losses were investments ? How looks the internal calculation ? 

Dont you think they have more informations then anyone here and make their decisions based on these or do you think they are just dumb as hell and make losses by purpose despite knowing how to make money on the Wii.

@maxwellgt2000

Ok you mentioned 3 games and one publisher but that still not indicating a trend that all make losses because of HD development and its generally stupid to make games for Hd consoles. If a game screwed up on HD consoles its a bigger loss then a Wii game which screwed up. But how many games on wii screwed up NONE ? Wii games cost 3 times less then HD games but this list which was posted before showed games with 20k-100k sales we can assume that they all screwed up. 

Its a bold statement to basically say like some people here do that all 3rd party developers are making losses with most  HD games. And they are focusing despite that towards the HD consoles. 

Thats not enough to prof such a point. 

@NJ5 

All of you think the whole industy is wrong ? HD development is a failure ? So what is going to happen with them ? Because I bet nothing will happen nothing special which could indicate such a huge failure. The industry is NOT domed.

Development costs are increasing due to HD development but why ? Hd development is costlier but the Hardware capablities are not increasing they stay the same so why should they increase that much ? So games will not cost 20-30 Million like the internet says but it will cost even more in 3 years ?

There are just two possibilties the whole industry is dumb as hell or you all are right. 

I really think they know their buisness way better then you all are. I will make tomorrow further research and list the games which were probably a financial failure on the Wii.

Most of HD games dont cost 50 Million they cost 20 Million and such games break even with one Million and Mulitplatform develompment  use of a known engine fix costs which decrease over the time make the games cheaper and cheaper. In 5-10 years HD game development will be almost as expensive as development for PS2 at the time, if you subtract the inflation. 

Last gen there were a lot of companys which went bankrupt and some others grew. Nothing special happened HD gaming is costlier but its ALWAYS like this. This is no novelty this happens every generation the wii is the first console which is not like this. But the HD sales are good enough to justifiy the extra expense.

That some companys struggle is normal and that they have extra expenses in the beginning is normal too and not all of the games are commercial success on NO console. If the developers could earn more money with Wii then with HD consoles they would do it. Human nature or just stupidity is wishful thinking some companys can be wrong but all of them definetly not. 

Ok lets assume you all are right but what happens next ? How many companys are going bankrupt will companys shift to Wii again ? Will there be a major crash this generation ? What are the consequences ? 

See, now there is legitimate solution to the problems that third parties face. Develop your own engine that is flexible enough to be used in future games, avoid expensive liscensing fees, outsource work when possible. 3rd parties should be looking to people like Epic that can make a high quality, high tech game with lots of features for 10 million dollars. They are doing something right. Simply saying "well they should stop making onrails shooters for wii, and make a good wii game, they don't understand the market" is not a constructive critique of the situation.

That's exactly what 3rd parties have been doing all this time, with the X360 and PS3, and now they're ready.  They already had single-threaded engines with the Wii, from the GameCube era, and the revenue from a Wii game wasn't enough to justify even the lessened expense of reusing what they had.

Cooking up multithreaded engines was expensive... and now that expense is mostly reduced to engine maintenance and improvement.  HD games are getting cheaper, but Wii games aren't.  At least the Wii games were cheap to begin with.

"Yeah obviously the fact that companies are losing money in the worst recession in decades is proof positive that their big problem is that they have an anti-wii bias."

You should look at more than just those replies. That poster didn't believe those companies were losing money at all, not just why they were.