farnham said:
The market is clearly shifting towards the wii.. the thirdparties are finally seeing it with prestige next gen titles like mirrors edge or Prince of Persia doing hohum numbers and relative budget titles like shaun white or nerf N strike rocking the charts..
lets see if this will translate to future support
It sort of has, but not in the way you may be thinking. Instead, it's caused publishers to take the casual genre as a whole much more seriously, even if all their games are not directly on the Wii. For example, EA has historically had one of the weaker line-ups for casual gamers this generation, only having the Hasbro titles and Maxis games to really support them this year. However, let's check out their casual line-up for 2009.
EA's Casual 2009 Line-up:
The Sims 3
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Beatles Game
EA Fitness w/ Oprah's Personal Trainer
EA Tennis
The Littlest Pet Shop
XBLA Hasbro Games
Wii/DS Hasbro Games
Spore Expansions
The Sims Expansions
Andrew Lloyd-Webber Game (Rumor)
And they also have their full array of sports titles which are genuinely seeing significant increases in quality. Even without a single core title they arguably have one of the strongest and potentially best selling line-ups in the industry. Of course they have far from abandoned making core titles as they have announced one of the strongest line-ups there as well, and likely will announce more games throughout the year. However, this much more balanced approach will cause them to not have to bleed money and employees if a few of their core titles bomb like it did this year, and it also shows what I would consider to be a very serious dedication to the audience of the Wii, albeit not with the core title support many here would have hoped for.