I wonder what they did to get that number.  I would imagine it came from something like:

1. Exclude all first party games.

2. Only look at the top ten from the NPD.

probably. This would actually make sense on how to come up with such a crazy number.

I still think most of it is due to part 3. Compared to last year, the Wii could never have had the amount of games it did. Brawl, MK Wii, and Wii Fit is a bigger three than any console has ever had EVER. I mean combine the sales and you are over 40 million in software sales. Hell that's more than the 360 has sold in hardware and then some.

So with that combo not present in this part you are going to see some lower sales in software, obviously, and some drops in hardware. Not to mention, Japan is just a mess right now for all consoles. America and Europe, on the other hand are mainly suffering from the software scenario. Starting later this month and all the way up til July Wii will have constant releases of Punch Out, Boom Blox Party Bash, Virtua Tennis 2009, Grand Slam Tennis, Tiger Woods 10, Harry Potter game, EA Sports Active, Wii Sports Resort, Overlord, The Conduit, Little King's Story, etc. So the situation should start to improve.

The article does highlight some serious flaws under the glossy finish. Unfortunately few on these forums will take these seriously. Though it does need to be said that Nintendo has issues with complacency, and they are reactive rather then proactive. Which means they tend to wait until a festering boil erupts, and they lose control. Before they even begin to try to resolve the problem, and at that point they are six months away from even being able to begin to address that problem.

Before anyone says negativity I say bullshit. Nintendo has let this kind of situation happen time and again. Shunning mature games, shunning cheaper formats, and even shunning games. They always seem to get cold cocked even though it was long in their rear view mirror. They are so focused on mining what they find that they never put enough work into defending that.

Ah man I love the old Doom games. I'm excited to hear that it's been announced for the Wii!

When is it coming out? It better not end up like Duke Nukem Forever and keep us waiting for eternity...

So much of that information is just wrong.

Half of all Wii game sales are music games in the USA? Lets be realistic here:

Through March 193m Wii games shipped in the Americas.

23m are Wii Sports.

Thats 170m.

It looks like lifetime, about 55% of that 170m is third party in the Americas. That would be 90m games. The best selling music games on Wii have barely topped 4m - and thats worldwide. There is no way in hell that " Guitar Hero and Rock Band are responsible for one-half of all Wii software sales in the US. That's a little-known fact, but a telling one – something akin to Sony's successes with SingStar, as outlined above"

Does anyone really think those two franchises account for 85m Wii games? Even if they meant half of third party Wii games I doubt they add up to 40-45m either. Its probably 6m for Guitar Hero games, 2m for Rockband games, and maybe another 1 million for the less games. Theoretically, on a revenue basis it could be possible since the games cost more, but there is no way in hell that statement is "a fact" on a unit basis.

Nintendo's financial projections for 2010 pretty much killed the idea of a price cut outside of Japan.

@dodece
I agree that Nintendo is reactive instead of proactive. It's their corporate nature though. That also translates to their conservative forecasting each year.

I also agree that Nintendo is slow to react and address the problem (and the 6 months time line sounds about right). That's how Sony has its comeback this year in Japan since Nintendo is taking its sweet time to react. However, I don't think Nintendo is losing control of the market. Based on the announced games so far, Nintendo is taking steps to fight back and should have a great summer. Anything beyond that would depend on the announcement in E3.

Blah.

The recession is more over than it is "taking its toll", job cuts have come and gone, unemployment is getting a little better, and gas in the US is back to over $2 per gallon. By the end of summer, the recession will have been a bad dream. Stop using it to equate to the gaming market.

IGN SUCKS