Graphics don't matter? I'm sorry, but this day in age of gaming they do.
Another reason why people probably hate on the Wii is because of it's controler. Me personally, I hate motion controls and I think most things would be better off staying at the controler level the Xbox 360 and PS3 have until technology for motion controls improves. First person shoots, again in my opinion, suck with the Wii remote. It's so sketchy when trying to aim with the Wii pointer and it just gets super tedious after a while. When I play CoD on the Xbox, it's fluid control scheme makes it enjoyable because you don't have a stupid Wii sensor bar messing everything up for you.
The live the Wii has sucks as well and that factors into it not catering to hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers are competitive people and try to be the best that they can be in a certain game. That's where live comes in where they can compete around the globe against other people. The Nintendo exclusive games for the Wii aren't as hardcore and challenging as some of the other games for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Do you seriously think an intense gamer is going to pick Mario Party for the Wii over Uncharted 3 for the PS3? I didn't think so. Also, don't interpret what I'm saying as the Wii doesn't have good games. They do. They just don't cater to the hardcore gaming fanbase as much as the other two consoles do.
The Wii also gets a reputation for being the "immature" console out of the three. Games like Mario Party, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Mario Kart, Pokemon, don't really sell its case well to the mature audience. Now I'm not saying that those games are for kids only but they certainly don't compare to a hardcore shooter like CoD or an expanisve RPG like Skyrim. They're simple games with a low difficulty level and that's not what the overwhelming demographic is looking for right now. What the Wii, or Wii U, needs is an exclusive title only for their console that will attract that type of audience and not just the lazy gamer audience like some of my friends.
Nintendo has had a notorious reputation for not treating third parties very well. One of the main reasons being is that each of their past console systems have had a gimmick in one form or another. As Koolshots mentioned, the Wii's case is the controller, making many games centered around motion controlls. This is fine for exclusive games, but appalling for multiplatform games that originally had traditional controls, such as the CoD Wii ports. Hopefully, Nintendo can lighten up in the future, but things seem dreery already for the WiiU, as the tablet controller could very well be a gimmick.
Koosholts already nailed it. Might elaborate just a bit more though...
It's really not about the graphics, it's about the power and storage, which Wii seriously lacks. SD graphics aside, the Wii also has storage limitations without a hardware and expanding memory via SD card is inconvenient. Sure, a title may need to be dumbed down for graphics but storage causes an even greater problem for porting Megaton hits onto the Wii.
The Wii's image is also certainly not helped by negative gaming media towards motion controls. "Hardcore" gamers adamantly cry that buttons are the only true way to play videogames. There may be some truth in this statement, however, as Nintendo itself seems to be targeting this audience with the Wii U-which unsurprisingly is at its core a return to the button method of playing that the company last pushed with the Gamecube. Casual gaming is now Free-to-play and on smartphones. Glad to see Nintendo getting into swing with the music of the age.
Above all, the Wii's largest problem is its online infrastructure. This is definitely the nail in the coffin for Nintendo's small box. Whereas the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 are able to provide demos, DLC, movie and TV streaming, party chat, game joining features, and more, the Wii is able to perform only a portion of those operations and not anywhere near as effectively. Fortunately, the company has been moving toward a sleeker shop interface and more stable online with the 3DS and there is no doubt the same won't be done with the upcoming Wii U especially with the recently announced Nintendo Network. The possibilities are endless and Nintendo better not fumble the ball this time around.
Wii have less than a year until the WiiU is announced and possibly distributed for purchase. If this is so, development on shooters and solid hardcore fighters has begun, and it will be updated on to a new system. Let's take a step back and observe this for a moment. The Wii as we know will soon become outdated, replaced by a heavier, more powerful running console. On this console there'll be loads more potential for great games, like those you mentioned, along with many more. But the worth of the Wii is almost up, and even with the months we have left I believe Nintendo would rather expend their efforts on preparing for the fresher WiiU than its predecessor, even with its indubitable capability for improvement.
Furthermore, the WiiU is going to combat the Xbox and Playstation with its High Definition graphics. It comes with touchscreen controllers that cover more options for the player to toggle with and, from what I know, allows them to opt for certain settings on all sorts of scales. With this massive switch in marketing the face of gaming as we know it will transform from Nintendo's side as well, and plausibly from its major competitors, who'll no doubt answer in kind.
So, altogether the Wii is being left out in exchange for something greater. The same thing happened with the GameCube, which still had the potential at its time, but relinquished its station to the Wii. This exact thing will continue with other platforms in the future as more innovative features are uncovered and worked into the system. Lastly, games that go magnificently with the older console could also be upgraded to the newer one and be better overall, if it fit in well enough.
Two reasons.
Developing a good Wii version is a risky investment. You can't be sure you'd turn enough profit to cover your cost. You want to know why the Wii is "left out" all the time? It's because Nintendo insisted on being so different.
- The Wii is underpowered. Say what you want about graphics not being everything. But the power behind the machine has to do with way more than graphics. It has to do with absolutely everything. Like how good the AI can be, how advanced things can be, etc. Everything about a game needs processing power and RAM, and the Wii simply lacks that. Graphics are only one thing. So people really need to stop thinking that graphics are the issue when people complain about the Wii's power, because it's not the issue. Because the Wii vastly underpowered, it's rather expensive to develop a game to all three systems because it has to be stripped down to fit onto the Wii. That means a lot of work removing features.
- The controls. You can say they're innovative. Perhaps they are, that's not the point. The controls are rather difficult to use. And I mean on the developer side, not the player side. Just because you might find the controls simple and natural doesn't mean that they're easy to code. They're not. It's very difficult. So it's another added expense. Combine that with the previous problem and you get even more of a reason why it's not cost-effective to port to the Wii as well as the 360 and PS3.
This was mostly reflecting on the past year or so, but yeah, Nintendo is really preparing for the Wii U, which increases my hopes that Nintendo will dominate the market with it's 7.5 gen. console. (It's not 8th gen, because it's early, the Wii U was really made to catch up with Sony and Microsoft.)
You say graphics don't matter but that's heavily implied when you coin the Wii U as 7.5 generation console. You've got some contradictions going, Mr. Hero.