Buying Games in Bulk?

[Bodhesatva]

Again, bolstered by the fact that original 3rd party and 1st party full-price titles have not done very well compared to other historically dominant systems, and even the Wii's competition. This is huge, because it could be part of the reason that few 3rd parties have announced major IP franchises to goto the Wii - the sales just aren't there!

Likewise, we can take NGS versus RE4. RE4 has done very well, selling just around 200,000 units in US + Japan. NGS has sold around half of that (in a few week's less time). But again, extrapolating data puts NGS at a more favorable outcome: RE4 is $30USD, and NGS is $60USD, and similar prices in Japan. The PS3 also has half the LTD sales of Wii hardware in both countries.

The "no 3rd parties have announced major franchises" is a straw man: the reason why no major third party franchise titles have been announced for the Wii is because they were already in development when the system began to explode. Honest question -- which major third party franchise should be on the Wii? Let me list the ones I can even think of:

GTA
Devil May Cry
Resident Evil
Metal Gear
Dragon Quest
Final Fantasy
Tekken
Medal of Honor
Kingdom Hearts
Need for Speed
Madden

Am I missing any 3rd party franchises you would call "major"? I can't think of any. Of these, the three with quick development cycles (Madden, Need for Speed and Medal of Honor) have seen iterations on the Wii, and both Madden and Medal of Honor are being custom-tailored for the Wii now, as was announced at E3. Of the others, all but Dragon Quest were obviously in development for the PS3/360 before the Wii was launched, let alone before it became a phenomenon! The real question is -- of the titles that have begun development in the last 6 months, which system has seen the most activity? The answer is the Wii, especially when one considers exclusives (almost all 360 games have also been announced for the PS3, which effectively means the PS3 and 360 combined have to compete against the Wii alone). This can be seen rather easily here:

http://www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=7064

In the last 3 months, the Wii has seen more net exclusive titles announced (13) than the 360 and PS3 combined (11), and I expect that figure to continue to accelerate as the system pushes past the 360 and further past the PS3.

Lastly, your RE4 comparison is especially unfair, given that RE4 is on its fifth version in the last 3 years, the second on a Nintendo console, while Ninja Gaiden Sigma is only on its second, and the first on a Playstation. Not a reasonable comparison at all, I'm afraid.