Pretty weird set of things to see together, isn't it? I mean, it's nothing new, but the December sales reinforced this yet again.
On the one hand, the Wii crushed all previous December sales records that month, selling 3.8 million systems, by far the best ever for any system in a single month. Total sales for the year were down slightly from 2008, but thanks to December, not by much. NSMBWii is a massive hit and sold millions. Nintendo-developed Wii games were six of the month's top ten, and it was pretty much the same for the year.
But on the other hand, no third-party Wii games were in the top 10, and the sales numbers we know are mediocre at best; third-party Wii sales aren't all awful, actually, but they aren't stunning either. They don't come anywhere close to first-party Wii sales, and in many cases don't match third-party sales on the PS3 or 360 either.
Of course, a lot of that is the third parties' own fault. Why would it be surprising for rail shooters to not sell that great, honestly? It shouldn't be! Rail shooters are a niche genre! And yet EA (Dead Space: Extraction) and Capcom (the second Umbrella Chronicles game) seem surprised that their rail shooters didn't sell as well as they hoped, and might cut Wii support as a result. Third parties just aren't putting their better teams on the Wii, and then they complain when their B and C team efforts get destroyed by Nintendo, one of the world's best developers. Hmm, yeah, that's hard to understand.
But anyway, it's definitely odd to see the Wii sell so incredibly well, while third parties still complain so much and overall third party support on the Wii really probably hasn't matched the GC's support in terms of quality, much less the PS2 or something. It's got quantity, and vast amounts of shovelware, but quality... not so much.
But still, considering how great Nintendo's own games are, the system fully deserves to sell as well as it is, I think. Hopefully eventually some third parties will get a clue.
Oh yeah, and I'll get a Wii sometime this year for sure...
all of my predictions are coming true. As far as 'gamers' are concerned, the wii is dead. Silent hill on wii was an amazing experience, dead space extraction was extremely well done and even excitebots which was made to cater to the newbs and hardcore alike failed miserably.
When Red Steel 2 gets out, it better do well... everyone (third parties) is going to go to MS for Natal and hit a market that will be hardcore and casual. Who knows what Nintendo will do now.
It's not like they're losing or failing as a company, they're winning. They dont need to change. But eventually, the wii will be branded as a straight up fad and disappear.
Silent Hill was a unique experience, and there's plenty of good games, but ABF's right, a lot of the third party games are just terrible. Never even heard of Excitebots.
Selling well in the present doesn't mean a thing. You can be getting a piece of candy all the way to the end of a cliff, but that end the cliff is still there unless you change direction. Businesses never plan for future catastrophe if they are doing well, always seeing only as far as their current profits. What I mean is, Natal and Sony's thing are going to remove any motivation 3rd parties have to make games for the Wii. They'll do what the Wii remote does, and a lot more on top of that. I'll basically have my Wii for playing Nintendo games, and that's it.
Tony Hawk's skateboarding game is one shunned by the whole earth, mainly because it's TOO accurate a simulation of skateboarding. Turns out, most people suck at skateboarding in real life, hence why they play games where they can pretend to be good at it. No one wants a dead on accurate simulation of sucking at skateboarding.
Dead Space Extraction doesn't hold a candle to it's big brother on the more powerful systems. It's still the B list game you get only if you can't get the "good one". And, well, Capcom has "supported" the Wii, but only so far as to port all their Gamecube games to it (a nice job, they added Wii remote support but kept Gamecube controller support, which is appreciated) and make those rail shooter games. Frankly, I don't want to just relive all the same stories in a genre I only play to pass time in a movie theater. It doesn't help that the Wii remote makes for a horrible Zapper.
Yes, I've finally made the judgement call there. The Wii Remote is a terrible shooting game substitute. You can't "sight" anything and the general "feel" is just that you are pointing and clicking like a mouse. You depend on a targetting reticule to shoot anything, due to how it has to aim. A modern Zapper with a new aiming systme that didn't depend on CRT pixel timing would help, but even then a lot of modern HDTVs have some lagging issues between signal and display. Not enough to be noticed by players, but enough to throw off the accuracy of the Zapper.
PS, human eyes still can't see electrons lazy. They see photons. The electrons in the CRT screens were converted INTO photons by the surface of the screen. In fact the reason the tube is a vacuum is because electrons can ONLY be "fired" when in a vacuum. In air, they will simply be instantly absorbed as static electricity by everything around it. All those electrons being fired just statically charge the screen. Light is what eyes see, and light is made up of photons, not electrons. I really hope you did research in the years since I last had to teach you this.
Excitebots is first party published DJ, not third. Third party developed, that is, but published by Nintendo of course. It's the great followup to the great Excite Truck and came out last year. Nintendo barely marketed it, which is really too bad because based on videos it looks awesome...
I wasn't really saying it was 3rd party, just that I hadn't heard of it. I also never bothered with Excite Trucks. Hmm, maybe I should give it a look.
Excite Truck was a Wii launch title and probably the launch game I wanted most... it was either that or Metal Slug Anthology. I've played it a few times, great fun game. The Wiimote works well for racing games, I think... sure, controls aren't that precise so for a Wipeout or F-Zero game it might be a nightmare, but for something like Excite Truck or Mario Kart it works well enough. :)
It is disappointing that Nintendo basically dumped Excitebots out there like they did... it should have done better.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Never even heard of Excitebots.
Part of the problem. Nintendo's latest idea is to market a game two months (at most) before a game hits and hit what they believe is marketable crowds, Excitebots was advertised in kid's magazines. The game was hard as shit and it has a poker race mode, then the boxart made the game look like a robot animal farm. In the end, a brilliant game gets discarded.
Quote:It doesn't help that the Wii remote makes for a horrible Zapper.
Try playing a game that allows for calibration. Once the wiimote is calibrated to the screen dimensions it can fire blindly and you can use the actual plastic as the sights. This is done in several games and there's an outcry for a standard wiimote calibration menu in the Wii's operating system that would coincide with each game.
Quote:Light is what eyes see, and light is made up of photons, not electrons.
troll 3/10 lrn2television
A Black Falcon Wrote:Excite Truck was a Wii launch title and probably the launch game I wanted most... it was either that or Metal Slug Anthology. I've played it a few times, great fun game. The Wiimote works well for racing games, I think... sure, controls aren't that precise so for a Wipeout or F-Zero game it might be a nightmare, but for something like Excite Truck or Mario Kart it works well enough. :)
It is disappointing that Nintendo basically dumped Excitebots out there like they did... it should have done better.
Motion+ would make worlds of difference. The wii is doing so poorly in the eyes of third parties, no one's even making a racing game that uses motion+. Why isnt there a 'Tony Hawk' game that lets you use the motion+ enabled wiimote as the skateboard and essentially 'fingerboard' by laying it on a flat surface and using your fingers as the feet, clicking the face buttons to initiate or prepare a trick? Because developers are fucking stupid and they wanted to make the skateboarding equivalent to Guitar Hero cuz "there's money in them thar hills" and in the meantime, the games that actually have a soul are going unnoticed. It's a perpetual nightmare for gameplayers. Unless you have a 360.
the next string of predictions I made was that the PS3 will overtake the Wii and to my surprise even with fantastic advertising, the PS3 cant take over because no one develops games for the thing. Sales are doing better and ms and sony are finally eating at the fat fur pie of Nintendo's orgy.
its strange because the ps3 is in the same boat as the wii, just in a different ocean.
Nintendo's going to bounce back with 2010's lineup, all these games showcasing motion+ we will probly also see the official wiimote with m+ built in. Probably the same size as the traditional wiimote without the dongle and the wii2 is definitely coming but no HD, just a wii that plays DVD's and has more memory, no backwards compatibility with gamecube and a rumored sensorbar with the full-room mic built in. The only upgrade we may see is the ability to upscale the games like on the original xbox. It's not real 720p or 1080p but it does look better and it runs properly on today's tv's.
The Wii can already play DVDs if they just sell a codec in their online store. Hackers have already made some DVD decoders for modded Wiis.
I can't imagine that they would ever have the need to remove Gamecube compatibility. It's not like the PS3 where the PS2 hardware was completely seperate from the PS3 hardware. In the case of the Wii, the Gamecube hardware IS the Wii hardware.
Eh the Wii may not see any major updates after all, what with the economy and such.
I'm not sure what your comment was supposed to mean about "lrn2television". I assume you've learned since then, or what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube
I don't care what your ignorant teacher told you about how TVs work. It wasn't an engineering class, they can be excused for not knowing how it works I suppose, but you can't be excused for ignoring one guide after another I've linked showing exactly how it works. Electrons CAN'T reach your eyes and your eyes DON'T see electrons!
Also, do you replace systems which just sold 3.8 million systems in a month?
Still, the "Wii HD" rumor just won't go away, and nor will rumors of Nintendo's next handheld... Nintendo's definitely working on something. The question is, which years are they aiming at releasing their systems in? This year? Next year? 2012 or later? It's hard to say, and I don't think I'm good at guessing, though some people like to try.
I honestly could see a new DS this year (in Japan, not the US yet) easier than I could a new Wii. Sure, DSi just came out not long ago, but if the next system is backwards compatible with the DS and can play the cards and download stuff from the DSiware shop or something they could get away with it I think. Still though, Nintendo might hold off just because of how well the DS is selling everywhere... you don't usually replace a system while it's still number one, like the DS is. They could anyway, but it'd be an interesting move.
It has been interesting to see Nintendo not really use the DSi's additional power in games, though. Very few games on card are DSi exclusive... pretty much only the download titles are exclusives. I thought it'd be more like the Game Boy Color, with dual-mode games, etc, but Nintendo and third parties alike mostly just have not used it for that, and games on card are mostly just standard DS, while just download stuff is for the DSi. Now there are a lot of things going into the DSiware shop, with new releases every week, but like WiiWare it's mostly smaller stuff, not major releases.
Quote:the next string of predictions I made was that the PS3 will overtake the Wii and to my surprise even with fantastic advertising, the PS3 cant take over because no one develops games for the thing. Sales are doing better and ms and sony are finally eating at the fat fur pie of Nintendo's orgy.
Once a console gets a lead it's very hard to lose it, and Nintendo has a big lead... PS3 did manage to finish above 360 in December, barely, but for the year the 360 won. I don't think PS3 will be doing what you predicted anytime soon, though. It's just too far behind, and the 360 is still much more popular overall in the West. Also, you're completely under-estimating the Wii's success in the casual market, just like most of the industry. Even just looking at month-to-month sales, I don't see PS3 or 360 getting anywhere near the Wii on a consistent basis, or in holiday seasons, anytime soon.
As for your last point there, though, Nintendo sold more Wiis than the PS3 plus the 360 combined... heck, you could double one of the numbers and then add the other to it and Nintendo'd still have sold more, I think. It was like 3.8 million for the Wii versus about 1.3 million each for the PS3 and 360. You are right that that's a big increase for the PS3 relatively in comparison to previous years, but the gap between Wii and either of them just keeps growing. :)
Quote:It's a perpetual nightmare for gameplayers. Unless you have a 360.
What do you mean by that? The PC might be a shadow of what it was ten years ago, but it's still the best gaming platform hands down... :)
Dark Jaguar Wrote:The Wii can already play DVDs if they just sell a codec in their online store. Hackers have already made some DVD decoders for modded Wiis.
Thats why I said its a software and hardware update, if you used the hack tools you'll also know it takes about 5 years to load a DVD.
Quote:I can't imagine that they would ever have the need to remove Gamecube compatibility. It's not like the PS3 where the PS2 hardware was completely seperate from the PS3 hardware. In the case of the Wii, the Gamecube hardware IS the Wii hardware.
There has to be hardware and software separately to run the gamecube games, including in these but not limited to the actual jacks for the controllers and memory cards plus the operating system to hold data separately for the gamecube things. It's a cost factor that could bring a 200 dollar Wii to a 150 dollar Wii with the same margin of profit for Nintendo. Combine that with the idea of a hard drive, downloadable Gamecube games that run strictly off an emulator, now you have a 200 dollar Wii with a hard drive with the same margin of profit that Nintendo was at. Pop on 50 bucks becuase of the new hardware upgrade, now Nintendo has increased their profit margin total by 50%.
Quote:Eh the Wii may not see any major updates after all, what with the economy and such.
its sort of the opposite though with the entertainment industry, dont you think? The more things suck in the real world, the more people want to escape. What was that Avatar budget again? ...what's its current rank on the highest grossing movies of all time?
Quote:I'm not sure what your comment was supposed to mean about "lrn2television". I assume you've learned since then, or what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube
I don't care what your ignorant teacher told you about how TVs work. It wasn't an engineering class, they can be excused for not knowing how it works I suppose, but you can't be excused for ignoring one guide after another I've linked showing exactly how it works. Electrons CAN'T reach your eyes and your eyes DON'T see electrons!
It must have done something to your eyes to make you that blind.
ABF/ I think the PS3 hit its stride, it didnt make Abyss waves, but it stirred the ocean a bit. What will happen now I think is that Nintendo will hit its second wind this year, but its lul will be more than a drought, it will probably kill the system, in two years we'll be getting info or release dates for Wii2 HD etc etc but the Wii itself wont have jack. Natal is going to destroy the market like Godzilla to Tokyo and reap all the benefits of what the Wii was attempting to do. Those high hardware numbers for wii are 'one-time-players'. They got a wii with wiifit, played it for 3 months and either never touched it again or bought their son and daughter DS and 360 games. Cuz they sure as shit aren't buying Wii games. That means after the golden year of top AAA games from Nintendo and the third parties last hoorah it will be rock bottom. Watch Nintendo announce the next Zelda for 2011 and bide its time with Vitality sensor Pacman and Psychic Tetris.
A Black Falcon Wrote:What do you mean by that? The PC might be a shadow of what it was ten years ago, but it's still the best gaming platform hands down... :)
Yeah if you're gay. You must be thinking of all those hands going down on rigid penises. Rigid, lonely penises that wonder what love is or have huge arguments over why Japanese RPG's are overrated and its the PC RPG's that are the shit, even though they lick buckets of taint and the worst Japanese RPG is so far above any PC krap its like not even funny. Show me a good PC western developed RPG and i'll show you a niche market. Console players will talk about the puzzles of Silent Hill, the story of Zelda, the characters of Street Fighter, the Art of Final Fantasy, etc and what will Wowfags talk about? Their anxiety attacks and clinical depression because the only reason they're playing the fucking thing is because they need safe, pseudo-social interaction; hence the niche (growing :P) market.
PC the best gaming console? Only in China, baby.
Quote:There has to be hardware and software separately to run the gamecube games, including in these but not limited to the actual jacks for the controllers and memory cards plus the operating system to hold data separately for the gamecube things. It's a cost factor that could bring a 200 dollar Wii to a 150 dollar Wii with the same margin of profit for Nintendo. Combine that with the idea of a hard drive, downloadable Gamecube games that run strictly off an emulator, now you have a 200 dollar Wii with a hard drive with the same margin of profit that Nintendo was at. Pop on 50 bucks becuase of the new hardware upgrade, now Nintendo has increased their profit margin total by 50%.
Right, like how the DSi has no GBA port, despite the fact that the hardware itself is 100% GBA compatible. Honestly, I'd probably be a little more surprised if Nintendo's next system DOES have GC ports, even if it's still based on the same tech like the Wii.
Quote:its sort of the opposite though with the entertainment industry, dont you think? The more things suck in the real world, the more people want to escape. What was that Avatar budget again? ...what's its current rank on the highest grossing movies of all time?
THe fact that games cost quite a bit may have something to do with it, I think. A $7.50 or whatever movie and a $50 game that requires a $200 system aren't the same.
Of course people going to the theater are probably going to spend more than that, when you add in popcorn, soda, etc, but they aren't really thinking about that, like how they aren't thinking about how despite its lower price (than the PS3), the 360 has a whole bunch more optional costs...
Quote:ABF/ I think the PS3 hit its stride, it didnt make Abyss waves, but it stirred the ocean a bit. What will happen now I think is that Nintendo will hit its second wind this year, but its lul will be more than a drought, it will probably kill the system, in two years we'll be getting info or release dates for Wii2 HD etc etc but the Wii itself wont have jack. Natal is going to destroy the market like Godzilla to Tokyo and reap all the benefits of what the Wii was attempting to do. Those high hardware numbers for wii are 'one-time-players'. They got a wii with wiifit, played it for 3 months and either never touched it again or bought their son and daughter DS and 360 games. Cuz they sure as shit aren't buying Wii games. That means after the golden year of top AAA games from Nintendo and the third parties last hoorah it will be rock bottom. Watch Nintendo announce the next Zelda for 2011 and bide its time with Vitality sensor Pacman and Psychic Tetris.
People have said stuff like that for a while now, but the Wii keeps surprising them by continuing to sell huge numbers. I expect that trend to continue. Natal? Maybe it'll catch on, but who knows... it's kind of weird, being hands-free. That technology has been tried you know, by Sony with the EyeToy, and it didn't do too great... didn't sell horribly, but it definitely wasn't huge. This will probably be bigger than that, but still, I'm not expecting it to win or something.
As for the Wii, it will continue to sell. And you're wrong that people only buy a few games... games actually DO sell on the Wii. It's just that most of those sales go towards first-party releases, and the third party stuff is spread out across a huge market and a lot of those sales go to junk that never shows up on sales charts. People really don't know what's worth getting...
But anyway, the point is, of course people are buying Wii games! Six of the top 10 best selling games of 2009 in the US were Wii games. They were just all first party.
Anyway, no, I definitely don't think Wii is just going to collapse or something. Some people who want Wii to fail because of its casual-heavy focus keep saying that it will, but it hasn't so far and I see no evidence that it's about to. It could happen, but I don't think it will.
Oh, and Nintendo's trying to get Zelda Wii out (in Japan at least) this year I think, though we don't know anything for sure about that.
You are right that Nintendo does do way too much biding its time and sitting doing nothing, but when they're making vast sums of money with that strategy as they are, it's hard to blame them for it...
Oh yeah, and NSMBWii is over 3 million sold in Japan now and still selling strong. In contrast, Mario Galaxy didn't do great there and didn't quite reach a million. It's doing very, very well in the US too... if the Wii needed a harder-core hit than many of its big hit titles are, NSMBWii seems to be that game.
True. I just dont see the Wii surviving unless Nintendo gives us a reason to play it consistently. Almost every venue of gaming news outlets is disappointed by the Wii, the articles are all 'Another great game is ignored' or 'here is what a Wii game looks like in HD' and my personal favorite 'X developer announces they wont be developing any longer for Wii'
Add to this Reggie's statement of "I dont know why companies aren't releasing their hardcore titles, I keep asking them" and those kinds of willfully ignorant statements tell me that Nintendo is going to continue with the niche market. They're ignoring all the serious issues the platform presents and the big one, the worst one, is that the Wii is becoming less and less viable as a gaming system. Back on Gamecube, that 20% of the market (the rest eaten by GBA/PS2) meant that a company could eat that 20% very comfortably and play that profit. But those 'guaranteed' sales aren't there any more, now we have a Nintendo platform with a much bigger following than gamecube but doesn't break a million on anything I would call good. I absolutely adore Wii sports and I hope it has another sequel soon, but i'd much rather have a real RPG or an F-Zero, Starfox, Pikmin etc. Thank god the new Zelda and Metroid are coming, i'll also be getting Galaxy 2. Yunno what I wont be getting? Bratz Dress Up, it's not out yet but it will hit huge sales, it will beat the sales of Shattered Memories in its opening week.
Why?
I cant say it
I have to
I promised myself never to use this word again
*cries*
It's a kiddie system. It's either kids or the elderly, girls, etc all those bizarre markets that are so hard to capture that every developer would love to break in to... but at the same time, the actual GAMERS are disgusted with the Wii. That's the situation.
NSMBWii is now over 10 million sold worldwide, and reached that number faster than any non-packin title ever.
Not all the great games are being ignored...
Again that's true, but look at the big picture.
Third parties haven't managed to match Nintendo? True, but some third party games here and there have done well. EA has had some success with Boom Blox and EA Sports Active, for instance... casual games, yes, but if hte issue is just about 'third parties don't get the Wii market / dump garbage or very niche titles on it and then are 'surprised' when they don't sell", I think casual games count too, if they're ones that are apparently good, successful ones like those.
It's the same problem Nintendo has always had over the past few console generations. The 3rd parties can't match Nintendo's games, and in the case of the Wii, they feel like the better option is to cash in on mini-game collections. I don't see this as the end for Nintendo like you do, but it will prevent the Wii from becoming a one-stop-shop for gaming. I couldn't own a Wii without my 360 as well.
I'm not saying Nintendo r teh doomed, the big picture is that the Wii is becoming niche and aims to exclude gamers, focusing on new markets.
The Wii sales are fantastic, but at the cost of alienating people who want video games. This isn't like the N64 or Gamecube where Nintendo was 3rd place and the first party software was amazing. They're 1st, by a large margin, but the first party software deals with weight loss and mini-games. All the 'real games' are on other systems.
lazyfatbum Wrote:I'm not saying Nintendo r teh doomed, the big picture is that the Wii is becoming niche and aims to exclude gamers, focusing on new markets.
The Wii sales are fantastic, but at the cost of alienating people who want video games. This isn't like the N64 or Gamecube where Nintendo was 3rd place and the first party software was amazing. They're 1st, by a large margin, but the first party software deals with weight loss and mini-games. All the 'real games' are on other systems.
That's just not entirely true. Nintendo does have some hardcore games too... yes, fewer than they used to because of stuff like Wii Fit and Wii Music, but they still do have them.
It's third parties that are really causing the "Wii is for minigames" problem. I mean, Nintendo has made some, but not that many more than they published before...
The N64 had three Mario Party games, the GC four plus WarioWare... Wii has just one Mario Party, plus a WarioWare and Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Wii Sports Resort. So far, the Wii and GC have the same number of minigame-focused titles.
One problem is that Nintendo has gone back to its bad old ways of not releasing lots of games in the US. The list of first-party-published DS games that have not gotten US releases is ridiculously long now, and the Wii list isn't that far behind it... sure, they finally did pick up a couple of them recently, but they're still horrible on this. Heck, even Europe has gotten several games we haven't -- they got the Wii Trace Memory sequel and Disaster too.
Sure, the titles they're skipping are mostly stuff that core gamers would like, so they aren't anything that would make a big impact on Nintendo's success. And this is obviously why they have skipped them. But they should be able to realize what kind of impact this kind of behavior has on their harder-core fans... Sega Saturn fans still won't forgive Sega for all the great Saturn games they passed on releasing here. Maybe angering your hardcore fans means nothing, but I'd think making at least SOME kind of effort would be worthwhile... I mean, it's not like all of those games would bomb if they released here, I'm sure.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php...count=2370
(Note that the numbers there are December 2009 sales only)
Quote:Yes.
Okay, just for fun, I included 3rd-party Wii titles in brackets.
> 400k:
Wii - 7 (1)
DS - 6
360 - 4
PS3 - 2
PS2 - 0
PSP - 0
> 200k:
Wii - 15+ (5+)
DS - 10+
360 - 5+
PS3 - 5+
PS2 - 0
PSP - 0
> 100k:
Wii - 40+ (30+)
DS - 40+
360 - 15+
PS3 - 10+
PS2 - 0+
PSP - 0+
> 50k:
Wii - 90+ (75+)
DS - 90+
360 - 30+
PS3 - 30+
PS2 - 5+
PSP - 5+
> 20k:
Wii - 200+ (175+)
DS - 190+
360 - 70+
PS3 - 60+
PS2 - 25+
PSP - 35+
Third party Wii software IS selling. The only question is what software is selling, not WHETHER it is. The Wii sells about as many games per week per user as the PS3 and 360, not less. Overall, Wii games sell. And they are not ALL casual games like you say. Many are, yes, but others are things like Mario Galaxy or NSMBWii, which are definitely hardcore titles.
You're right that the Wii's library is disappointing and should be better (why in the world aren't PSP games like the PSP Soul Calibur title also out on Wii? Sony moneyhats? Why won't Nintendo do anything about that, the Wii needs games like that!), but the situation isn't quite as dire as you suggest, I think.
Really, given those awful, awful sales for PSP games versus pretty solid sales for Wii titles, why in the world are third party titles like Dante's Inferno, Soul Calibur, and Assassin's Creed on PSP but not Wii? It's just bizarre.
And Soul Calibur II sold best on the GC in the US, I think there'd definitely still be a market for a good Soul Calibur game on the Wii... Soul Calibur Legends was not that!
The new NBA Jam as a Wii exclusive is an interesting move, though, and one that could pay off... NBA Jam was always a sports game for the casual arcade fan, so if it's good, and with the original designer working on it it could well be, it could be perfect for the Wii market. Of course EA hasn't been too successful with some of their other Wii sports titles, but this one could be different I think...
http://wii.ign.com/articles/106/1063846p1.html
I think they're right, there is a real trend right now towards games based on classic IPs. I think it's not just on the Wii though, there is some of it on the PS3 and 360 too... but yes, the ones on Wii certainly have been a big boost to the system's library.
I can't even get a Wii for myself there always sold out...