This post is so full of epic win.

 I remember posting something similar a few weeks back actually.  People need to realize that third parties aren't struggling on the Wii.  They aren't dominating like Nintendo's lineup but they are doing just fine.

In the end the developers/producers don't care about attach rates or if their title is the 7th best selling title on the platform instead of the 6th best.  All they care about is getting raw sales.  So far 8 3rd party games sold a million copies with one of them likely to hit 4 million and another likely to pass 2 million before April. 

And this is all without even considering the fact that Wii games have smaller budgets and are therefore more profitable with lower sales. 

 Wrong.  It's absolutely relevant as a statistic because as with any number, watching how it changes over time helps predict future trends. 

 You say that the Wii and 360 look excellent by the third party sales standard, and I agree with that, but only compared to the PS3.  If you include the 360 in your 3rd party million sellers sales analysis you get 46.9 million, and that's using numbers from a month ago because I don't care to take the time and update my spreadsheet.  

 Wii doesn't look so excellent anymore, does it?

A direct comparison between the sales of third party games does not really give a fair assessment of how well third party publishers are doing on the platforms ...

For the Wii the lower development cost, fewer high quality third party games, lower (average) quality of third party games, and shorter time on the market (as compared to the XBox 360) means that third party publishers are doing very well on the system; you don't have to take my word for it, just look at what most publishers are saying about the Wii, and how they're going to increase development in the future.

The XBox 360 and PS3 greatest strength is that few games are released exclusively for any platform, all platforms are needed to justify the development, and the combined sales of games have been doing very well in general.

I would never claim that the 360 has done a poor job of selling third-party software, because clearly it has. In fact, I said so explicitly in my previous post. It *IS* fair to mention that the platform has been out for an entire extra year compared to the Wii and PS3, however. (That's the reason why I usually do Wii/PS3 software comparisons, since they were released at the same time.) For fun, here's the 360 third-party million seller list as of this point in time last year. I reconstructed this list using the data from the 360 game database and the worldwide sales as of the week of March 16, 2007: (http://vgchartz.com/weekly.php?date=39159&console=X360&maker=&boxartz=1)

360 (Last Year) Third Parties
Madden 07 1.55m
Call of Duty 2 1.35m
Need for Speed Most Wanted 1.35m
Tom Clancy GRAW 1.25m
Oblivion 1.08m
Pro Evo Soccer 6 1.08m
Call of Duty 3 1.01m
Total: 8.67m

Wow... Honestly, I thought it would be more than this! But the fact of the matter is that the 360 only had seven third-party million sellers as of mid-March 2007, the same time last year. In fact, when I went back and checked the numbers, it only had ten million sellers PERIOD at that point:

360 (Last Year) First Party
Gears of War 3.78m
Perfect Dark Zero 1.37m
Project Gotham Racing 1.35m

By making this comparison, it turns out that the 360 and the PS3 have a very similar first 18 months in terms of million sellers. But the Wii outpaces BOTH OF THEM in third-party million sellers! I really did not expect to see that. And, of course, the Wii outsold them about 10:1 in first-party software to boot. So the notion that Wii third-party software doesn't sell is revealed to be one of the biggest Internet myths of all time. In a year-on-year comparison, the Wii's third-party software decisively outpaces both of its rivals!

I apologize if I slightly wandered off topic in replying, De85. When I actually ran the numbers, it turned out to support my argument even more than I thought it would.

this thread has no point what so ever

 Hmmm, a thread about sales, in the sales discussion forum, on a sales tracking website.  Clearly it is irrelevant.

@Sullla

As much as it pains me to say it, I didn't evven think about last year so it looks like you've got me on this one.  If you do a parity calculation though to average it over the userbase the 360 should still be ahead since the Wii has had ungodly sales.  

@Sullla - I need to save those numbers for future debates, heh.

kenzomatic said: Name Console Publisher Japan America Others Total Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Sega 0.53 1.31 1.66 3.50 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock RedOctane 0.00 1.71 0.27 1.98 Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition Capcom 0.14 0.84 0.69 1.67 Rayman Raving Rabbids Ubisoft 0.02 0.79 0.48 1.29 Carnival Games Global Star 0.00 0.77 0.48 1.25 Sonic and the Secret Rings Sega 0.04 0.43 0.72 1.19 Red Steel Ubisoft 0.04 0.46 0.54 1.04 Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles Capcom 0.26 0.48 0.27 1.01 Totals (8 matches)       12.93 Without Nintendo

The funny thing about this is even the best selling third party game (by far) has Nintendo characters in it.

@Sulla
Thanks for the very good info.

I disagree, it's the second best game in the "minigame" genre. It would easily be a million seller if it wasn't packed in. Look at sales in Japan. Don't hate, congradulate.