The Wii and third parties, what some people may not take into account

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Gamerace said:

While that did initially appear to be the case, there is a major problem with Wii for Japanese developers and that's the fact that in Japan their games sell terribly on Wii.  Even AAA games like Tenchu 4 completely bomb on Wii as does most attempts at casual.  Very few games can break the 200k sales point where games are profitable without having to rely on Western sales.  Even Nintendo has released games with very poor results in Japan (Disaster/WarioLand/Captain Rainbow).

Currently a game will sell 10x more if devleoped for the PS2 than the Wii (or release on both).   Meanwhile PS3 and 360 software sales are continuing to improve.   While the high cost of HD may deter 3rd parties in Japan still, with current trends they will need to switch to PS3/360 rather than Wii.

 

 

This is true for all systems in Japan not only the Wii.

If you don't have a strong brand name, like Dragon Quest, it is really difficult in the current japanese market to have a hit ( Dragon Quest Sword sold half million copies on brand name alone ).

In recent years only offering for expanded audience ( ie: English Training ) or games with social interaction ( ie: AC WW and MHP ) seems had  stroke the way of success.

The reality is that if you  are a japanese developer and you don't have a strong brand name behind you, you can't rely on japanese market alone ( except if your development cost are really low ).

The Wii however has development cost comparable to PS2 and its sales are exploding at a rate never seen before in Europe and America.

If you want to develop for 360/PS3 you must compete with the western high tech software house who made their bone on PC gaming.

To me Wii and DS are platforms where low/mid developers/publishers hungry for success  try to achieve their limelight.