Michael, Im very wary of boring people who have been round this argument six or seven times in the last couple of months so here is a condensed version of my particular hobby horses. It is still long.
Everyone else - we've been round this already way too often, so I think I'll duck out of the rest of the thread this time round!
1) The ship hasnt sailed not sailed too far anyway
The expanded audience isnt going away any time soon. Doing nothing wont be an option. Dont ignore the market next time and at least start some research now
2) Target your games properly
Most of the high profile third party failures on Wii were targeted at the vanishingly small audience of people who (a) have a wii (b) dont think it is cool to hate it (c) play the Wii in a private space and on their own (d) dont have a PS360 to compare the graphics/play of the rubbish spinoff to (e) dont read the gaming sites and mags that dismiss the Wii (f) do read the gaming sites and mags so they know the game exists.
(b) and the contradictory (d) and (e) knock out nearly all the potential audience. It was bonkers to expect them to sell more.
3) Do some market research
Nobody knows (or nobody is saying)
- how many people play the Wii (way more than the number of consoles, for sure)
- how many Wiis are in family homes (40%+, 70%+?)
- how many of those are in a family space, how many in a private space (hugely important, probably most of them)
- who in those families plays Wii, and what for
- who in those families doesnt play and why (captive audience right there)
- who does the purchasing
- what else all these people do how many golfers, home crafts people, football fans, aeronauts, physicists, army vets etc etc etc
Itll take all of a couple of days in a few shopping malls to get some numbers. Until then, theres no point saying you dont understand the audience, because you didnt try.
4) Make the right games
If (as I suspect) the vast majority of Wii gamers (not consoles, gamers) are playing in family rooms, that influences what gets played.
What tops the hardcore market blood, violence, horror, swearing, sex and maturity wont sell to people too embarrassed to play it in front of their mother/sister/wife/husband/brother/boyfriend. Its the Lady Chatterley argument. These are private pleasures to the extent they are pleasures at all.
But theres no law that says AAA big sellers have to have these things. You are kidding yourself if you think that is what hardcore means.
So make one without use your imagination.
5)
or play to swing the market your way.
This would mean playing to sell Wiis to the people who buy your sort of games. That means AAA, it means exclusives and perfect controls, and it means more than one of them and the promise of more to come without all this wimping about testing the market with games doomed to failure.
Thats way too big a call for one dev though. But a hell of an opportunity for the one that moves first and grabs it. Might be a hell of a risk too, but actually we don't really know that yet because all the 'tests' have been so awful. Go work it out properly.
6) Understand there is no such thing as the casual market
OK, there is sort of a hardcore market, but casual is only defined by being not hardcore. So if you try to make games for the casual market, all you end up doing because it is your only criterion - is make games that the hardcore dont like. Thats no guarantee that anyone else will like them either. They will probably be crap.
Only two ways around that:
(a) make games for everyone thats the bit Nintendo has stitched up, and if you want a piece of it youd better be really really good how good do you think you are, huh?
(b) Target some section of the market
Im not talking demographics here. Im talking interests, experiences, hobbies, family relationships, schooling
pretty well any way you can slice the population as a whole, you can slice the Wii market. And on the whole, people arent ashamed of buying and playing the Wii, which means you can expand that market any direction you want to:
Make a golf game for golfers rather than for gamers (hint, it will look a lot different to TW10) go look up how many golfers there are first, thats your target market. Its big.
Make a travel game for tourists (go count em theres lots).
Make a game that explores American history properly.
Make a game that lovingly recreates an ancient city or two or three without you having to kill people in it for goodness sake.
Look at what sells in books, on TV, in shops instead of what sells to hardcore gamers.
And treat all these people seriously.
It's working like crazy in the fitness market - go work it like crazy in another one.
7) Walk the street
Do your research yourself. Go talk to the 25-35% of households IN YOUR STREET that have a Wii.
Then go back to the office and fire your marketing department.
Thats way more value than asking GAF.
8) Do it before your next shareholder meeting
Remember, 25-35% of your shareholders play Wii too. And more every year. Are you going to stand there and tell them that they are fickle and incomprehensible? Sure you are!
) dont have the foggiest of what makes a casual game or core game. I blame Nintendo for bringing these words to the industry though. Although, you could argue that third parties were very eager to copy Nintendo. In the end, nobody know what they actually mean and which games fits the terminology. 
