PRODUCTION VALUES VS. WII PRODUCTION "VALUES"
Something's gone very awry on the Wii. For the console with the greatest number of releases in 2008, it also had the largest number of games that scored 4.0 or lower on IGN. That's almost a quarter of the Wii's catalogue and that's a shocking percentage. One in four games released on Wii in 2008 flat out sucked.
What's going on, Nintendo? What does that Seal of Quality stand for?

Rhetoric aside, here's the deal, kids. This is why the Wii is chock full of shovelware: it's smart business. Games that only require three programmers, two artists and no marketing means that the overheads are low. If it costs you less to make, you stand to gain a hell of a lot more. The Wii is the perfect platform for this approach to development, as is Sony's PlayStation 2. The hardware is relatively inexpensive, which means that the adoption rate is high. If the console is in lots of homes, then the chances of someone buying your software is markedly higher. If your game only costs twenty bones on the shelf, next to a game that costs a hundred (in AU dollars), then which game instantly looks more appealing to mum and dad?
Who cares if the game looks sub-N64 and plays like a poor Flash game? If the cost is small enough and the concept has the potential to suck in uninformed parents, then you can count the dollar signs. We really hope that despite the Wii's massive install base the current glut of awful Wii titles in the market can't sustain itself. Surely stores will become oversaturated with third rate shovelware and they won't sell. There's only so much shelf space, after all, and Wii owners will only buy so much software.
Worst Recent Offenders:
PlayZone Movie Studios Party (Wii)
Balls of Fury (Wii)
Clever Kids: Pirates (Wii)