Some EEDAR Analysis:

From EEDAR:

Core Games on Wii Continue To Struggle

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle has scored top reviews averaging a 90 (out of 100) since its release. However, sales came less than 30,000 units for its first week (January 26, 2010 release). Given that the game is more targeted to the traditional core gamers (who tend to be more attached to the Xbox 360 and PS3) this is yet another sign that the Wii is a difficult device for third party publishers to succeed on with M Rated titles. Other titles that have failed to perform despite strong review scores on the Wii include Dead Space: Extraction (ERTS) and MadWorld (Sega). Of course, all three titles did have low marketing budgets, which is likely the wrong strategy to use when attempting to target the Wii consumer, even if you are targeting the “core” market. (Italics ours.)

This is what I've been hammering on. It's like publishers are just expecting that core games will sell on the Wii without any promotion. Here's the thing: They'll promote the crap out of Modern Warfare 2 and Dante's Inferno, ensuring huge sales. Then they say, "See?  Games sell on the 360 and PS3." Then they don't promote Wii games, and then they say, "See?  Games don't sell on the Wii."

OF COURSE THEY DON'T SELL IF YOU DON'T PROMOTE THEM!

Even for traditionally "core" games, they promote them like crazy! How large is the Madden marketing budget? How large was the marketing for Halo 3? It just baffles me, it really does.