1 Ridge Racer V - 611,507
2 Gekikuukan Pro Baseball 1999 - 482,061
3 Tekken Tag Tournament - 457,340
4 Kessen - 363,277
5 Dead or Alive 2 - 341,362
6 Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 7 - 313,630
7 Shin Sangoku Musou - 302,101
8 FIFA Soccer World Championship - 252,358
9 The Bouncer - 219,858
10 Mobile Suit Gundam - 208,564
Above is the PS2's Top 10 for 2000. These aren't just the system's best third party games, these are the reasons the system was been bought. At the time, all of these games had a high-profile and many were considered to be AAA games.
1. Wii Sports - 1911520 / 246473
2. Wii Play - 1487484 / 1990669
3. Mario Party 8 - 1053934 / NEW
4. Wii Fit - 818166 / NEW
5. Super Mario Galaxy - 747684 / NEW
6. Super Paper Mario - 499639 / NEW
7. Dragon Quest Swords - 486222 / NEW
8. Mario & Sonic - 363101 / NEW
9. Wario Ware: Smooth Moves - 348485 / 545251
10. Gentle Brain Training Wii - 261161 / NEW
11. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - 260819 / 546093
12. Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles - 212417 / NEW
13. Pokemon Battle Revolution - 201919 / 332892
14. Fire Emblem: Goddess of Dawn - 171924 / NEW
Above the Wii's Top 14 for 2007. I'm not really certain where this talk of the lack of core gamers is coming from. Even if you decide that Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, and Gentle Brain Training shouldn't count because 'a core gamer could never purchase or enjoy those game' or whatever nonsense, you're still left with a list of games that compares favorably to the PS2's first year.
I see 3 major faults with these comparisons between third partied between the Wii and PS2.
1) The PS2 was made successful because of its 3rd party games, the Wii because of it 1st party games. Ridge Racer V did not sell a lot units because the PS2 userbase was friendly to 3rd parties... It sold a lot of units because it was the system's flagship title and was hyped to hell and back. It just so happened to be 3rd party. When we make these comparisons, what we're really doing is pitting the PS2's top games to the Wii's #7 game and then wondering why the don't match up.
We can argue over why this is happening, but it doesn't really matter. There is no other platform that these companies can turn to and expect better returns than the Wii.
2) We're still arguing on the basis that third parties operate as a collective entity. They don't. They're only concerned about the sales of their own games and games like their own. Look at the two charts, Capcom did better on Wii than they did the PS2 in its first year... but we are suppose to believe they will turn their noise up at this because Namco hasn't had as much success?
3) The future of the Wii is not set in stone. In 2000, the PS2 had no 1st party games in the Top 10 ... I don't know why Sony even bothered support the system past that. How can they compete with the likes of Namco and Square? In 2001, they had two (one being a million seller). The difference was that Sony went from releasing mostly b-grade titles to releasing a GT3 and HSG. A little quality and some hype can go a long way. The PS2 and DS have both seen major changes in the landscape of their softwares sales over time, the Wii will do the same.