Everywhere you look, people seem to have nothing but nice things to say about Boom Blox on the Wii. Jaded, cynical game critics have found the title to be whimsical fun, with everyone commenting about how under a cute veneer lurks the cold heart of a challenging puzzle game. Most have viewed it as both a rewarding single-player experience and a tremendous party game, so much fun with friends that it has supplanted mainstays like Smash Bros. and Wii Sports. All this love hasn’t translated into sales though, as the game has been a commercial bust, moving only 60,000 copies to date.

So why did such a promising game flop so badly? NPD analyst Anita Frazier points out "noise in the market," considering the game had to compete with Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Metal Gear Solid 4. With all those titles launching at around the same time, it was hard for Boom Blox to compete for wallet space with all those other big names.

Some believe pricing may have been an issue, as the game was sold at retail for $50 alongside other games like Mario Kart Wii and Wii Play which, for the same price, offer gamers a new peripheral or a free Wiimote. It’s tough for a block-based puzzle game to warrant a consumer’s attention when there are other games that provide you with "more," for the same price.

Yet another potential pitfall for Boom Blox was the fact that no one seemed to know who the audience was supposed to be. The game was too complicated for kids, and yet too cutesy and sugar-coated to draw core gamers. So instead the game just sort of floated in demographic purgatory, unable to really draw the eye of much of anyone.

Ultimately, what Boom Blox’s failure really illustrates is the continued struggle of third-party publishers to sell games on Nintendo’s consoles. For years now, we’ve been hearing about how only first-party games turn a real profit, and situations like this do very little to dispel the rumor. If a game created by Steven Spielberg, earning rave reviews, can’t get an audience, what can? Tales like these do not inspire confidence in third-party publishers, meaning that we could see the same ails that afflicted the Gamecube happening all over again.

- Via Kotaku