Robert Saunders from Nintendo’s UK headquarters recently told MCVUK that core games can sell well on Wii (after looking at the positive numbers that Goldeneye 007 has been bringing in.

“The sales of GoldenEye show that these titles can and do perform well on Wii. The idea that Wii owners are only after smaller mini-game compilations or first-party titles isn’t true. A good quality title, supported well by both publisher and retail, has just as much chance of performing well as any Nintendo title.”

I’ve known for a long time now that non-Nintendo “core” games can sell well on Wii, but a lot of the time, those games have “Resident Evil” in title or come from another well known franchise. It’s been difficult for the likes of The Conduit, MadWorld, and No More Heroes to sell as nicely as they should, given that all three are both core games and actually solid titles. You could argue that each game had something about it that made it “difficult to market”, but the simple truth is that they should have sold more plain and simple.

Part of the reason why Goldeneye 007 is selling so well on Wii is because of the James Bond name and moreso, because of the Goldeneye 007 linkage to the Nintendo 64 classic. Not every core Teen/Mature game on Wii (or even E rated like Zak and Wiki) has a big name next to it, but hopefully they’ll start selling more in part to Goldeneye. If a good amount of people buy it, then that could open up the doors for games like Grinder and The Conduit 2 in 2011. Time will tell, but hopefully good games will sell as they should.