Wii Sports is the most realistic simulation of Sports on the market. Which is why it is the best selling game of the generation, bundles or no (The game quickly became the reason people bought Wiis to begin with). Nintendo has a powerful Sports game on new values like actual motion simulation, and less on stats and franchise modes.
it's the most realistic simulation of the MOTION of sports on the market. I don't consider the Wii Sports home-run contest to be an accurate simulation of the game of baseball. I consider it to be an accurate simulation of me swinging a bat. Bowling is very realistic, but the baseball, tennis, and golf games are really simplistic.
Thing is, the people that are buying Madden ARE buying it for franchise modes and stats, not motion control. The fact that Wii Madden is gimped in some areas when compared to the 360 and PS3 versions of the game is probably more of a killer than anything here. The best Madden experience is going to be on 360/PS3, since it's much better for online play and just slicker and better-looking in general.
The people that are buying the Wii for Wii Sports don't care about traditional sports games (especially the people buying it now that we're well past the early adopter phase). Wii Sports and Madden are about as far away from each other on the gaming landscape as you can get. Comparing them is like comparing PilotWings and Microsoft Flight Simulator...they're targeting two totally different markets.
And it is the fault of third parties. For too long has Nintendo been saddled with the guilt of third party failure after third party failure, simply because they had the smallest userbase. Now that they have the largest, it's time for the blame to be shifted onto the third parties. Or Third PARTY as the case may be with NFL Football games.
I don't buy this argument entirely. Third-parties have ALWAYS struggled on Nintendo platforms to some degree. Sports games, which are mainly made by third-parties, have also struggled. Not just this generation, but ever since the SNES days. At some point Nintendo has to get some of the blame for that, probably in the sense that they don't market their consoles as sports consoles, or don't market third-party games. I don't think that they cannibalize third-parties with their big titles, since big first-party titles and third-party titles seem to do fine on the 360 and PS3.
I think third-parties also share the blame though, since they often don't make good games and then wonder why they don't sell.
And since when did third parties care what Nintendo "prioritizes?" They prioritized absolutely jawesome games like Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3. Nobody copies those or even tries to. That would require too much effort when they can squirt out a Wii Sports or Nintendogs clone and call it a day. Or make dumb minigames and "All-Play" purpose-branding in order to placate a market they perceive exists. Third parties are in the wrong here. Nobody ran defense for 2K when All-Pro Football tanked recently. Nobody blamed those consumers when they chose Madden instead. And as such, the Wii owners, or should I say the majority of the market, is not going to be blamed for Madden's inept failure to attract the already sports-activated audience by Wii Sports.
I don't think Wii Sports is going to make anybody start craving Madden. People like Wii Sports because it requires zero knowledge of the sports involved. They gravitate to Wii Sports and gravitate away from stuff like Madden; it doesn't act as some gateway drug to make them crave a deeper experience. I'd say this for the Wii in general, actually. I think people nowadays buy a Wii because they don't really have to worry about complicated control schemes, not as a starting point to move towards more complex control schemes. If they wanted complex control schemes they'd already have a 360 or PS3.
EA is going to want to get these people, because it's more money and not less money, and they will just have to try harder and IN EARNEST next year.
I don't think 150,000K in sales is going to make them care. They'll likely just service the platform adequately and that's about it. If they're smart, they'll see it as a growth opportunity and try to get those sales up, but I'm not sure if they know what to do on the Wii platform to begin with. If they were smart, they make Madden Wii like one of the Mario sports games. I think that would actually sell.