Isn't this missing the point though?  I don't know what the real distinction between 1st party and 3rd party is but if it is the case that a game developed by an independent company and is published by Sony is not 3rd party then that is a meaningless distinction.  It should be the developer that determines whether a game is 1st, 2nd or 3rd party.  The publisher should be irrelevant.  If Sony buys a company and that company develops a game then that should be 2nd party (irrespective of who published it).  If Sony in-house actually developed the game then its first party.  So eg Diddy Kong racing on N64 by Rare was 2nd party while Mario Kart 64 was 1st Party.  And the publisher of games also varies from region to region.

Anyway the argument is about whether independent developers can sell on a console.  If the game had the backing of Sony as publisher and still sold poorly then what hope is there for a game that is independently developed and does not have the backing of Sony as publisher.  Likewise if for example Pro Evolution Wii is published by Nintendo and it sells poorly it would be a refelection of a 3rd party (Konami) not selling well on Wii and not a 2nd party.  

You call Monster Hunter 3 and Fatal Frame 4 flourishing?  Isn't one of them a pokemon clone and the other a second or third tier horror title that never really caught on last gen?  Well maybe it's not a pokemon clone but it's not something I'd get excited over.  I think the fact that there's a thread asking who doesn't play their Wii, and the response from it (especially the people who're playing VC titles rather than Wii titles) says a lot.  And where exactly was the effort by Nintendo to get those games?

It's great that Nintendo is making lots of money  but I don't see how that makes things better when so far it's been pretty lackluster for the Wii as far as games are concerned.  Why haven't they used that money to get loads of great games onto their system?  Instead the Wii is getting Super Mario Galaxy, and a few decent exclusives this Fall/Winter.  I mean the review scores are starting to come out for some of those third party games and they're average at best.  I owned an N64 and still own a Gamecube and I hated the waits between good games, that's why I don't own a Wii I simply got tired of that and thankfully the 360 has so many great games that those kind of waits are a thing of the past. 

It's great that you're so happy about the Wii's success, I'll be honest I like when there's fierce competition because that brings out the best in companies and the competition between the PS3 and 360 is getting fierce.  Nintendo appears to be happy to sit back, release their own games, and if third parties go to them then great but if not who cares since their first party games will sell lots and it gives them less competition on their system.  Enjoy you Wii (well whenever you get your next great Nintendo release, enjoy the waiting between Nintendo releases) :)

With both the PS3 and Wii we see the line-up as being weak early on (in North America and Europe) because most Japaneese systems have been released in Japan over a year before they hit other regions. If you look at the PS2 the first game that was really worth playing on it was Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec which was released in April of 2001 (approximately 13 months after the system was released).

It wasn't until (about) 18 months after the PS2 was released that it had a solid (worthwhile) library ... If you look at when this will be for the Wii (May/June 2008) the game line-up will be pretty competative with the PS2.

That's the whole point - Nintendo doesn't have to buy exclusives anymore, and Sony and Microsoft are beating each other up over them. This is why Wii was the perfect strategy for Nintendo: the fact is that Nintendo can't compete with these two companies in a ridiculous bidding war for third party exclusives.

As for the importance of these two exclusives: Monster Hunter Portable was the main driving force for PSP sales up until FF Crisis Core came out. Pokemon clone or not, it's big news. As for Fatal Frame, the series averages around 80% on Gamerankings, not bad at all. They aren't the big, big games: those will come if Wii's dominance continues. Instead, developers are testing the waters with the second stringers. It's still better than the third stringers we're getting now, the fourth stringers we were getting eight months ago, and the no-stringers we were getting at launch.

People need to look at the big picture instead of limiting their vision to a three month time frame.  In just over a year Nintendo has gone from having the worst third party support, hand-down, to having middle-of-the-road third party support, and it's still improving.

I seem to remember Tekken Tag Tournament, Twisted Metal: Black, Grand Theft Auto 3, Ico, Silent Hill 2, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X, Ace Combat 4, Metal Gear Solid 2, Jak and Daxter, and dozens of announcements of huge third party games in development for the PS2.  There was no mistaking at that time who was going to get the lion's share of third party games and their best ones, and that a very big stream of hits/big games were destined for that system.  In comparison I see the Wii with good Nintendo first party games but what I don't see is the same commitment from third parties to put all their best franchises on the Wii.

I'm sorry, but have you seen what Nintendo is worth?  There have more money than Sony currently.  They most definately could bid for exclusives, but they won't.  They have always been about giving themselves and their own games the advantage, not 3rd party reliance.  Now this is changing, somewhat, but don't think they couldn't bid for or buy any game on the market if they really wanted to.  But I suspect if they decided they couldn't live without, say FFXIV for example, instead of buying exclusivity for the game, Nintendo would sooner buyout SE altogether and bring it inhouse.

Now what Nintendo cannot afford to do is subsidize a money-losing games division like MS has always done and Sony is doing currently, as that's their only division.

The generations are not perfect clones of eachother, in fact I think there is one very important difference ...

Last generation everyone (except fanboys) anticipated that the PS2 was going to crush the competition and when it was released that is exactly what it did; this meant that development plans were revealed far in the future, executed, and delivered in an anticlimatic fashion.

This generation almost everyone anticipated that the PS3 was going to crush the competition up until E3 2006 (and most still expected it after that) and when it was released it got it's "butt" handed to it by the system everyone doubted; this meant that the development plans that were revealed far in the future now needed to be reconsidered and companies had to change their strategy.

The result of the unexpected outcome is that companies have to change their direction ... With how large development costs have become changing the direction of a publisher is like turning an oil tanker (for those who don't know, turning an oil tanker is HARD!!!).

9 months in this environment and most companies have made some massive adjustments; in the next 12 to 18 months (if this pattern continues) people will be wondering why anyone ever doubted the Wii.

You basically wrote my response for me...Nintendo can't afford to subsidize a money-losing games division, and buying exclusive games is one of the things that leads to a money-losing games division.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all - when I said Nintendo can't afford it, I didn't mean Nintendo can't afford to buy some exclusives - sure it could (and maybe it should) but what I meant was that Nintendo wouldn't be very profitable if it was in the same posiiton as Microsoft and Sony: buying exclusive third party games to sell  unprofitable hardware.

BBQ'd cow.