Prince of Persia and Beyond Good and Evil sold poorly because Ubisoft released them at the same time with virtually no advertising. Besides, a lot of gamers are kids, and they don't care about sophistication--they just want cute, puffy pink things that send you off on fetch quests. What's more fun that finding 20 different objects of varying colors for your favorite cartoon character?
Ew, that's the worst. I like to go around shooting people or playing games where I can release anger, not fetching things...Ew