charlequin said:
It's not really about getting "the biggest franchises," but rather about building a healthy ecosystem. The titles that we think of as the biggest AAA franchises from last generation were, by and large, going to go HD this generation regardless of Nintendo's actions. What Nintendo needed to be pushing for earlier (or should start pushing for now) is fully-realized, high production value titles with new or revived IPs that fit into the Wii's "style." If a certain amount of RPGs, platformers, action-adventure games, third-person shooters (in the RE style), etc. come out for Wii and enough of them are successful, other companies will pursue the money on the table.
I guess we can agree to disagree. I think Nintendo has done an adequate job of courting 3rd-parties for the B/C level games. Just off the top of my head, the Wii has received or will be receiving King's Story, Trauma Center, Samba de Amigo, Shiren, Oboro Muramasa Youtouden, Opoona, Boom Blox, Tales of Symphonia, Fragile, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, De Blob, Deadly Creatures, Arc Rise Fantasia, Super Monkey Ball, Star Wars Clone Wars, MLB Power Pros, SimCity, Red Steel, No More Heroes, Zack & Wiki, Chocobo, Tenchu, Endless Ocean (3rd-party dev), Manhunt, Mega Man, Lost Winds, We Love Golf, Elebits, MadWorld, Nights, Monster Hunter, Fatal Frame (3rd-party dev), Spyborgs, Harvest Moon, etc., along with spinoffs to popular franchises such as Dragon Quest Swords, Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Sonic & Secret Rings, Rayman, Soul Calibur Legends, Castlevania Judgment, etc.
I know you think that Nintendo should be trying to get even more B/C level stuff from pubs, but I don't really think several more games along those lines would make a huge difference. That list I gave is quite strong for B/C level stuff, covers a wide range of genres, includes both well-established franchises as well as new IP. And there is undoubtedly a fair amount of new stuff which has been greenlit recently that we don't know about yet.
What is missing from the Wii are the AAA level titles from 3rd-parties. Stuff like Final Fantasy XIII, Metal Gear Solid 4, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Grand Theft Auto IV, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Yakuza, etc. Stuff where the publisher allocates the top in-house development teams, top franchises, top budgets, and puts it all to work on a game for the Wii. And as you admitted yourself, Nintendo wasn't going to get any of those efforts from publishers at the start of the gen.
Going forward, things will probably change somewhat in Japan. Monster Hunter is already coming to the Wii, and I'd be surprised if full-fledged entries from Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest don't hit the Wii by the end of the generation. So the top teams, budgets and franchises will begin finding their way to the Wii from the Japanese publishers, in large part because of the utterly dismal performance of the HD systems.
In the west, it will be a slower transition, and maybe even a weak transition - because there is enough of a pull from the HD systems in the west to make it difficult for the publishers to know how to transition to the Wii without sacrificing the large investments that have already been made on the HD systems. I still stand by my belief that western publishers very much want to participate in the success of the Wii - they just don't know how to go about making such a striking transition in the middle of a generation, when they've already spent so much time and money and research on the HD systems, where the engines and development teams and assets were set up and budgeted for multiple games, sequels, reuse of assets, etc. in order to get an effective return on the money spent.