Many are Wii shovelware to be sure, but believe it or not, some are big titles. That "two person" example I mention is an interesting one because it actually is a name brand title believe it or not. On the surface it's easy to think that going 360->PS3 is much easier than going 360->Wii, since 360/PS3 are similar, etc. Turns out though, 360 to Wii is easier. 360->PS3 requires parity, so whatever is done on one must match the other as much as possible. 360->Wii on the other hand is a downgrade, which is easier to do. Doesn't fit in memory? Chop textures. Runs to slow? Yank some scenery out. Etc, basically it's easier to destroy than it is to create. Plus the Wii is a simple machine so you can throw an intern on it, give him free Chinese food and he will happily crank away for hours. With a 360->PS3 port if it doesn't fit in memory or if it runs to slow then you have to resolve it or your boss will kick your ass. And I definitely wouldn't throw an intern at doing a 360->PS3 port
That makes sense given how a game like QoS turns out, but they were developed by different studios. I can't imagine that these smaller studios would take on a project that would take, what, 1 intern 4 months to do? Wouldn't they need to assign a project manager to it -- it doesn't seem like hiring a different studio to carry out a port would be as lightweight as you say. (Do games even have project managers as such? It seems like there's very little project management methodology behind games.)
Sure, but no one's saying they should make exclusive PS3 games (unless you're Nippon Ichi and can get away with making PS2 games on PS3). The issue is whether to build games for both platforms' userbase, 360+PS3. If the PS3 version is unwelcome, profit-wise, it's hard to imagine that the game as a whole isn't doomed, considering the 360's userbase. 360/PS3/Wii ports are difficult to find, outside of Wii Music, but in those that do, like CoD5, the PS3 version does outsell the Wii one. Wii apologists are quick to tell you that WIi owners don't want the gimped version; whatever the reality, whether it be userbase or quality, they just don't want that game (well, as much as the other platform owners do).
But this is what Mintmaster is objecting to. In this economy would Activision seriously forgo a serious thing for something extremely uncertain? 1 million-selling games on Wii are still extremely rare if they're not by Nintendo. Sure, just about every publisher has one million-selling minigame collection but at the same time you hear complaint after complaint that publishers and developers just can't figure the platform out.
And I think this is doubly true of Activision; they canned quite a few (mostly HD) games just because they weren't open to being exploited on every platform, every year. They're especially risk-averse, and that's probably a big part of what makes Kotick so successful (which he was even before Vivendi-Blizzard merged in).
And in fact, I'm seeing a bit of the opposite; the Wii continues to get very niche games, only copies of what has been proven to sell well, games 'specially designed for the Wii', like light-gun shooters and fitness games. We're just past E3, we're not seeing a shift of publisher dollars to the Wii. And this is 2 years after the breakout success of the Wii, I'd have expected some sort of reaction by now. All we have is Sega. Poor Sega.
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