Well if you remove Wii sport from the equation 3rd party software combined has sold more than Nintendo offerings, the tie ratio for 3rd party is 1.588. I am following the 3rd party software market in USA for Wii so you will get an update on these numbers after next month numbers is out.

Third party developers are doing very well in Japan on the DS, Level 5 for example with Professor Layton, amazing game! Got it myself so know what I'm talking about But of course seeing the numbers at here, Nintendo is the best selling publisher. I just hope so much Namco Bandai will score like hell with One Piece. If the scores turn out well I'm going to get a copy for myself as well! So hopefully the rumors about the Tales of games can come true and we can see some Tales games on the WII...

But thats not Japan... The tie ratio minus Wii Sports is a decent 1.5 for 3rd parties (which still isn't that good, only when you consider the # of systems sold, is it good). In Japan, minus Wii Sports, third parties still sell only about 1/4th the amount Nintendo does. For the DS - 3rd parties are doing good. However, there ARE 15m units of DSes in Japan out there...There IS a huge base out there, making it nearly impossible for 3rd parties to sell bad. When there are that many units out there, it gives devs incentives. The Wii seems to have a lower tier ratio for 3rd parties when it shouldn't. The DS is around a 5.0 tier ratio, which is good for a handheld. However, for consoles, they typically end up at a 10.0 tier ratio. At the rate the Wii is going at, 3rd parties would only recieve around 1.0 of the 10.0 games sold per Wii in Japan, and maybe 4.0~4.5 in the US...Which is pretty good for the US, but absolutely poor for Japan...That'd mean there'd only be around 1 3rd pary game sold per Wii @ 20m units. Thats aweful!

Sony does not own Insomniacs, they are 3rd party. Resistance sold out any Non Nintendo game in America.

Why should Cooking Mama and Trauma Center show great sales numbers? On the DS Trauma Center only sold 24k units according to VGcharts, on Wii it's now close to 20k units which isn't that much less. And Cooking Mana on DS had less units sold 6 weeks after it was released and with around 60k units total it wasn't a very big hit in the end. So why should those two titles be big on Wii in Japan when they're obviously not on a platform with a userbase that's way bigger.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Resistance is published by Sony meaning that it is not a third party game; the correct term for a piece of software published by a console manufacturer that is produced by an independant company is Second Party. Currently it has sold more than any third party game on the Wii but it is the only game on the PS3 which can make that claim; the last time I checked both Rayman Raving Rabits and Red Steel had outsold every piece of third party software on the PS3.

It's quite simple really. As with the DS/PSP initially, almost all publishers bet on the wrong horse and put their biggest franchises on the PS3 instead of the Wii. Nintendo single-handedly changed the direction of the Japanese market and the third parties who didn't realize this got left behind. You snooze, you lose. I'm sure they'll come around eventually.

If only the Wii was region-free because there are a lot of games I would love to buy from Japan, but can't play because my Wii is an American one. Maybe if the Wii was region free, it's 3rd party sales would increase even if it was by a bit. I'm a Nintendo fan, but I give props to Sony for at least having that feature put on the ps3 (at least for ps3 games).

The best games on the Wii are Nintendo titles. This has always applied to Nintendo platforms. Hence most of the sales are taken by Nintendo titles (2 1+ million titles, about 400k Zelda, 400k WarioWare, etc..). The best games on the PS3 are 3rd-party titles. Musou especially - take it out, and the sales level off. Plus compare the "names" out for the PS3 vrs Wii (3rd party): PS3 - VF, Gundam, Musou, AC, RR Wii - DragonBall Z (port), Naruto, Bleach (all ports?) No surprise that PS3 3rd-party titles are outselling Wii 3rd-party titles. Wait till the Wii gets some FF/DQ loving.

Resistance: Fall of Man PS3 Sony 128,500 Genji 2: Days of the Blade PS3 Sony 57,500 Motorstorm PS3 Sony 52,000 Formula One Championship Edition PS3 Sony 34,500 Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom PS3 Sony 9,250 1st Party Software 281,750 Gundam Musou PS3 Koei 231,500 Ridge Racer 7 PS3 Namco 142,750 Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight PS3 Bandai 141,750 Armored Core 4 PS3 From Software 79,500 Virtua Fighter 5 PS3 Sega 79,000 Enchanted Arm PS3 From Software 27,500 Need for Speed: Carbon PS3 EA 22,000 Power Smash 3 PS3 Sega 16,000 Mah Jong Fight Club PS3 Konami 13,500 Sega Golf Club PS3 Sega 10,000 3rd Party Software 763,500 All Software 1,327,000 Hardware 811,750 All Attach Ratio 1.63 3rd Party Attach 0.94 Wii Sports Wii Nintendo 1,232,500 Wii Play Wii Nintendo 1,046,000 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Wii Nintendo 440,750 Wario Ware Smooth Moves Wii Nintendo 382,000 Pokemon Battle Revolution Wii Nintendo 236,750 Fire Emblem X: Goddess of Dawn Wii Nintendo 118,250 Excite Truck Wii Nintendo 66,000 1st Party Software 3,522,250 Dragonball Z Sparking NEO Wii Bandai 102,500 Master of Festivals Wii Namco 77,750 Naruto Shippuuden Ninja Fighting Wars Ex Wii Tomy 64,750 Bleach Wii Wii Sega 60,000 Super Swing Golf Wii Tecmo 55,750 Elebits Wii Konami 55,250 SD Gundam: Scad Hammers Wii Bandai 41,000 Tamogotchi: Sparkling President Wii Bandai 39,500 Red Steel Wii Nintendo 29,000 Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz Wii Sega 27,250 GT Pro Series Wii MTO 22,000 Crayon Shinchan Wii Banpresto 21,500 Trauma Center Second Opinion Wii Atlus 19,500 Rayman Raving Rabbids Wii Ubisoft 14,250 Eyeshield 21: The Gridirons Strongest Wii Nintendo 13,250 Cooking Mama: Cook Off Wii Taito 12,750 Necro-Nesia Wii Spike 12,000 Kororinpa: Marble Mania Wii Hudson 11,250 Sonic and the Secret Rings Wii Sega 10,500 Bomberman Land Wii Wii Hudson 9,000 Need for Speed: Carbon Wii EA 8,750 G1 Jockey Wii Wii Koei 6,250 Monster 4x4: World Circuit Wii Ubisoft 3,750 Wing Island Wii Hudson 3,000 3rd Party Software 720,500 All Software 4,242,750 Hardware 1,918,250 All Attach Ratio 2.21 3rd Party Attach 0.38 Okay, I think it's better to look at ALL of the numbers here, rather than focusing on what is. Point 1, there are WAY more 3rd party software titles on the Wii than there are on the PS3, PS3 is bare bones. I think the PS3 is a much better platform for developers to develop for if you were looking at the current platform market. Nintendo just owns japan, the situation is COMPLETELY different when you include Nintendo's software in the line up 3rd party devs are obviously going to go where the money is... now the problem I see from all these rickety numbers is that expensive games like Armored Core and Virtua Fighter are not performing well, this is a problem with the Japanese market that Nintendo have foreseen and captivated on very well which is why they and the Wii is performing so well in Japan at the moment. No longer are the gamers games really successful in Japan. You've got to look at the whole picture. Basically Japan lives on three formats of games now - the big popular well known RPG names, the Anime Spin Offs and the 'easy to pick up and play' games which Nintendo is the only one really providing on next gen level now. Look at the 1st party sales on PS3, that is incredibly dismal for the league of the games that are there. Not many suit the Japanese market. CURRENTLY the PS3 is performing better for 3rd parties, with higher numbers coming form less games - which has always been a major benefit of the Playstation brand, but when big franchise titles like VF5 and Armoured Core aren't copping over 100,000 sales then that is not a good sign. Nintendo really doesn't have any 'big' titles that suit the Japanese preference of games at the moment... and the ones that do, the Anime Spin Offs are at the top of the list, DBZ, Naruto and Bleach. Surprising? Not really. Dev's don't really look at these kind of attachments rates however, the simple and down to fact point is install base, and it is proven with so many games leaving the PS3 and hitting 360 or new games being announced for Wii. The problem is that with such terrible total numbers for the PS3 (1st and 3rd Party) no matter how good the game is it is quite unlikely that the amount that devs need to spend and the amount that devs need to sell for re-coup the cost is just not happening because of the expense of development, for devs to want to stay with PS3 they are going to want to sell more copies... VF5 is one such example, horrid sales of a fairly big game.