The Wii wil never get the kind of third party support that the PS2 had.

[mike_intellivision]

Third parties do not develop for the Wii as much as the other consoles for two reasons.

The first is inertia. They Wii was expected to do mediocre (at best) to poorly this generation. Instead, it has outsold the Xbox 360 and PS3 worldwide since its release. But the companies were all prepared to develop for the HD consoles. Now, with all of that investment in resources -- people and equipment -- to develop for those machines, they have to recoup their investment.

Second, the Wii is targeted toward everyone. Nintendo realized that chasing the 18-34 male demographic exclusively did not work because (1) that demographic is shrinking and (2) that demographic does not think much of Nintendo's offerings (or at least is pre-disposed to buy something that someone else is offering). The third parties traditionally have offered games that appeal to the 18-34 male demographic; for the most they do not know how to do more broadly-appealing games (e.g., Activision's offerings on the Wii). Thus, they continue to do what they know how to do.

Third parties could take N'Gai Croal's strategy and develop for the Wii and upscale to the PS3 and Xbox 360. Unfortunately, because many of the developers are stuck in a "technology trap" (aka graphics concerns outweigh gameplay concerns), doing such is not an acceptable possibility for them.

Mike from Morgantown