There are some shockingly poor sales here, and no excuses. 'It is cheaper to develop for the Wii though!!'. Even if it is (I have yet to see any proof on this yet, although people quote it like they read through the accounting books of game development companies every day), why would you care if your game flops? No wonder Reggie recently made some sudden announcement about a huge 3rd party development shift to the Wii. Getting a bit nervous there Nintendo

How do you correlate these together? Why would Nintendo announcing some of the best 3rd party support they've had in a decade be a sign of nervousness? Care to comment on the actual 3rd parties themselves making the announcements ot the public with this regard? Reggie merely reiterated what many 3rd parties had already been announcing. Perhaps it's fanboys from Sony and MS that are getting nervous.

Some of those titles are definately very poor, but who is there to claim excuses apart from the 3rd party developers themselves? The games that are very low on that list just don't suit the Japanese market at the moment, and honestly I don't blame them for not selling because they are incredibly poor. The Japanese buyer is much smarter these days, they don't buy crap games any more, clear and simple, they don't (unless it's an anime spin off :P)!! But 3,000 sales for a game like Wing Island?? Wholly crap that is shocking! I don't know how long that game has been out now, but anyway you look at it that is terrible. But I can pull out alltime Japanese sales for any of the current gen platforms and they all have some low performing titles across the board, YES even the DS has games that have sold under 6000 units LTD. What sort of proof do you want about the ease and cheapness of development on Wii? I think denying the fact that it is cheaper and FAR easier to develop for is being delusional hanafuda, you cannot seriously think that development costs are the same on Wii? I can go and dig up proof if you want to, but I really can't be bothered because it's such a pitiful and stupid argument to make, I shouldn't even bother to refute it. The comments about Reggie saying huge 3rd party development is coming to the Wii also... I can't understand how you think Nintendo are the ones that are nervous? Where do you get that from considering they are topping the sales charts in every region.

Well I you watch the american charts you will see the reverse thing, so I do think 3rd party is very happy. At least Ubi and EA . I do think Reggie just speak for NOA, or am I wrong?

Why though? Do they need reassuring? Yet that is almost a complete list of 3rd party games in Japan. I only missed off the top two as they had OK sales. Everything else? Far from it. Are you saying that practically all 3rd party games so far are incredibly poor? Don't forget that Sonic has just bombed too, and that has generally favourable reviews. Indeed, but here we are talking about practically every 3rd party Wii game released. Everyone and their dog seems to quote it, yet I don't think I have seen one single explanation as to why. Just give me an explanation that makes sense. Precisely. When you are on top, you don't need to make any bold claims. Why would they need to even mention this if things were so rosy? The Wii itself may be selling better than the rivals, but the software is a different story entirely.

In fact Square said that the fact DQ IX is announced for the DS doesnt want to imply in any sense DQ wont return to Playstation .I think they are just waiting until more consoles are sold .

Square-Enix themselves said they were going to spread out their lineup and not focus on 1 platform in an interview mid-late last year. Dragon Quest X's platform has yet to be written in stone, but that doesn't mean that it will return to Playstation either.

Then in Japan they're going to be waiting QUITE a while, the PS3 won't be hitting 1 million in Japan 'till either late next month or probably May, with no games looking to change the statistics anytime soon.

I think they do need reassuring. I don't think Nintendo believes they are on top, they can't believe they are on top, they are fighting a battle coming in as the underdog from a third place in the last generation. Why would they not announce positive things like strong 3rd party support on the Wii? Wasn't this not touted as the reasons that the N64 and GameCube didn't do better? I think this comes in a long line of steps by Nintendo to admit that they had made mistakes in the past and are doing everything they can to rectify it. If you have a moment it would REALLY serve you well to have a read of this article - http://www.gonintendo.com/files/IDC-Nintendo-Blue-Ocean.pdf It's from the start of 2006, and it's funny that a lot of the predictions made in that report have come true during this year. From what I can tell the market is following Nintendo and it's Blue Ocean quite well. HOW can more 3rd party support be a bad thing? I still think there are more good games for the type of games that I like coming to PS3 and 360 at this point from 3rd parties of course but the support I can see for Wii definitely suits its target market! I'm not arguing against you that the sales are incredibly poor. I think all of those games have sold poorly. A lot of the games ARE incredibly poor quality or shoddy ports from other systems OR they just don't suit the Japanese market. I personally HATE Sonic, and I don't believe the games style suits Japanese gamers AT ALL. Yep I agree, it is practically every 3rd party Wii game released, it's not GOOD but I don't think it will stay that way when bigger titles are released for Wii. It is Nintendo's double edged sword. They make the good games that people buy their console for and everyone forgets the other games. I just don't think touting the sales figures of the current crop of titles from Japan will turn off developers at all. *Rolls eyes* If you still don't agree with me after this I'm not going to respond to you again on these forums, because this is un-refutable evidence and brings brilliant arguments (this deserves its own thread). I'm not a Nintendo fan either, I'm just stating it how it is and providing you with the explanation that you need. ACTUAL hardware Devkit Costs Nintendo Wii Devkit costs only $1,732 from my sources. PS3 Devkit costs between $30,000 and $50,000 depending on the source and the developer, I don't think they all get the same price. That as your starter is a massive difference JUST to get started, and each major developer doesn't have just ONE devkit per game... they have hundreds. Information - Quotes from developers re: cost of development. You don't need to click the links i've just provided my sources so it's not like i'm talking shit. 1. Ubisoft - http://www.n-sider.com/newsview.php?type=story&storyid=2337 Ubisoft's Red Steel game for Wii will incur a development cost of approximately $12.75 million, according to a report by JeuxFrance.com. Wii is considered to be the cheapest next-generation console to develop for. In May, THQ president Brian Farrell estimated Wii development costs are in the range of a quarter to half of that required for PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 development. What does this mean for developers? A game such as Red Steel could cost them between $24 - $48 million on PS3 or 360. Ubisoft NA Head - Laurent Detoc - http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=14497 The lower cost of development and unique motion sensing controls seem to offset the fact that the console is incapable of gorgeous hi-def graphics 2. THQ CEO Brian Farrall - http://www.cnet.com.au/games/wii/0,239036428,240062644,00.htm "One of the things we like about that platform is the development costs...on the Wii are nowhere near what they are on the PS3 and Xbox 360. That's something that's quite encouraging. As you probably know, our portfolio maps very, very well to what we think the Wii demographic is going to be." "[The Wii] wasn't a whole new programming environment," Farrell said. "So we had a lot of tools and tech that work in that environment. So those costs--and again, I hate these broad generalizations--but they could be as little as a third of the high-end next-gen titles... Maybe the range is a quarter to a half." 3. Majesco - http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=19669 Publisher Majesco has praised the lower development costs of Nintendo's Wii console, and intends to refocus its business to take advantage of the system's potential. 4. Midway CEO David Zucker - http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/6299/ "When you talk about the PS3 and the Xbox 360, ramp-up costs are significant. You don't have the same ramp-up costs on the Wii because you have the tools already," 5. Sony CEO Ken Kutaragi - http://www.ps3focus.com/archives/127 Developing software for the PS3 from scratch will require an initial investment of at least 2 billion yen [US $17.6 million] [not including development costs]. There are not many software companies that can easily afford that kind of money.” Hardware is more difficult, therefore more expensive, through time consuming development and graphics development The most expensive part of developing a game is the graphics, the rest of the game can run fairly well, but the graphics are what takes all the time and effort. Simply the construction of the Hardware Architecture between the PS3 / X360 and the Wii is a major effect of development times. Lets say the same scene needs to be developed for a PS3 game and a Wii game. The PS3 game will require much more programming time for the different lighting, texture and in game effects. Definitely this makes the PS3 games look better but the development time of the same scene is extended greatly. I'm not going into any more details because you're an ANUS for making me do that as it was... I can go more into the technical hardware 'this pipe has this much room' type arguments but i've spent an hour on this post already. If you don't believe it now then you'll never be convinced and you can just live a lie. Good point, and I agree above. I don't think things are 'so' rosy, Nintendo is just being humble about the whole situation, but I don't think it is a 'nervous' announcement I just think they are righting their wrongs and making sure that everyone knows about it. But you can't say the software is a different story entirely.. 3rd party software is a different story entirely IN JAPAN but attach rates are better for the Wii as a whole.

Cool post man, although I don't appreciate the name calling. It's not like I forced you to write that. Looks like you enjoyed it to me Interesting point about the cost of the dev kits. If you figures are correct, then I didn't know the costs were that far apart. However While I understand what you are saying, and see exactly where you are coming from, I have a big issue with all of this. Why? Because it doesn't look to me like development costs on the Wii are cheaper than anything, with the exception of the cost of the dev kits themselves. Why? Because it is clear that developing a Wii game can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be, and that all seems to depend on the scope and scale of the game being developed. Using Red Steel as an example again, that is an adventurous title, and the development costs were not cheap at all. However, if the scope and scale of the game is going to be small, then those costs are going to come right down, but the exact same thing can be said when developing the same for the 360 or PS3. So the bottom line here clearly seems to be that development costs on the Wii can be low, provided that you keep the scope and scale of the game small.

I think the chances of DQ 10 coming to the wii are very strong, because Wii is the only system selling strongly in Japan. Did you look at the sales this week? Wii didn't even have a game released and sold around 80,000 units. Sales in Japan are 90% of the equation, because that's where most of the sales will come from. Also recently Square was talking about the possibility of bringing FF13 to 360, which tells you that they are worried about making money. PS3 sales in Japan will have to be at least somewhat close to Wii sales to have a chance to come to PS3 i believe.