superchunk on 31 January 2008
As Erik said, who publishes it makes all the difference.
Using the Nintendo example above, what is the difference between your 2nd and 3rd parties? Who actually published the game.
If N makes and publishes the game, thats 1st party.
If N only publishes the game and some other company is in someway owned by Nintendo makes it, thats a 2nd party game.
**Normally, these two are pretty much considered the same thing. As N is still chief and the games are exclusives.
If N has nothing to do with the creation or publishing of the game and is merely collecting license fees. That is 3rd party.
**This is where N has failed the last two generations and due to the extreme success of the Wii will fare a billion times better now.
