Total Quality Management would say that Quality is an absence of defects. That doesn't apply to video games, because a video game that has nothing wrong with it is still not necessarily worth playing. This attitude helps lead to the "highly polished turd" phenomenon. Unless we start writing bug reports that say things like, "This game lacks Tim Schafer's genius. To reproduce: 1) play game; 2) note absence of genius."
A related question is "How important is quality?" I've just finished "Beyond Good and Evil" (the game not the book) and it's probably one of the best designed and compelling[1] games I've ever played. Yet because of the poor sales the hinted at sequel will probably never happen.
You can offer all the quality you want, but it doesn't guarantee that people will want what you're selling. As far as I can tell the gaming industry is still at the point where popular usually means good, be there's always aberations and it's getting to the point where well-known is often more in important than well-reviewed.
[1] It can be played in about 10 hours or less (probably less if you're actually a good gamer) so I should have finished ages ago, except I took a break for Pro Evolution Soccer. That's not to take away from it's compellingness it just show how easy it is to distract me with something new and shiny...
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