| happydolphin said:
It's my understanding that the sales of 3rd party games on the Wii increased dramatically _after_ Nintendo secured a successful launch thanks primarily to 1st party titles. It is my understanding that 3rd party titles are not needed to push a Nintendo console in its early years. Here is the yearly breakdown of Wii SW sales. I'm not sure how to get the breakdown by publisher anymore, but here is a start
If I could subtract the amount Nintendo sold per year, that would help us complete the analysis, but it is my strong understanding that 3rd party games did not push the Wii's success in the early years (2006 to 2009). |
I dont even think we can do that anymore, though I think 2007 at least had Nintendo at >50% of SW sold. It was the Years after where 3rd parties caught up. Wii Sports and Wii Play are to thank for that. Still, there was a pretty good 3rd party market on the Wii through 2007.
2007 3rd party releases above 1 Million units (Theres a lot) -
LEGO Star Wars Complete - 5 Million
Guitar Hero 3 - 4.5 Million
Carnival Games - 3.9 Million
Cooking Mama: Cook Off - 2.8 Million
Sonic and the Secret Rings - 2.6 Million
Game Party - 2.4 Million
Resident Evil 4 - 2.1 Million
DDR: Hottest Party - 2 Million
Rayman Raving Rabids 2 - 1.8 Million
High School Musical: SIng It - 1.75 Million
MySims - 1.6 Million
Umbrella Chronicles - 1.5 Million
Smarty Pants - 1.4 Million
Hannah Montana Spotlight - 1.4 Million
EA Playground - 1.2 Million
Disney Princess - 1.2 Million
Rockstar Table Tennis - 1.2 Million
Winter Sports - 1.2 Million
Ben 10 Protector - 1.2 Million
Sims 2 Castaway - 1.2 Million
Need for Speed Prostreet - 1 Million
FIFA 08 - 1 Million
Tiger Woods 08 - 1 Million
Naruto Ninja Revolution - 1 Million
You could possibly add Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, seeing how its partly 3rd party. We wont though. Obviously, not all of the sales will have come from 2007, but the Wii market in 2007 was strong enough for 3rd parties to bring 24 1 Million selling games to the system.
To show Nintendo's domination in 2007 -
Nintendo's 2007 efforts include Wii Fit, Super Mario Galaxy and we could use Mario and Sonic here too. Wii Fit was released in December in Japan only and sold less than 1 Million units in 2007. Mario Galaxy was a November release and sold 4.2 Million in 2007. Mario and Sonic was a November release and sold 2.5 Million in 2007.
22.9 Million units of Wii Software in 2007 came from Wii Sports and Wii Play. Mario Party 8 sold 4 Million in 2007. Twilight Princess sold 4 Million in 2007. Links Crossbow Training sold 800k. Super Paper Mario sold 2 Million. WarioWare sold 1.9 Million.
Anyway, I did some maths with other games included and I got 46.1 Million Nintendo software sold in 2007 on Wii out of a total 75 Million. Just under half of that comes from Wii Sports and Wii Play of course, but a stupidly impressive number none-the-less, completely crushing the 50% barrier.
I wont do the same for 08, 09 and 10 because I dont have the time... But you can clearly see that the consumer didnt JUST stick to the Nintendo games. The 3rd party games still sold, and sold well. When Nintendo's dev teams were busy pushing out DS/Wii games, the 3rd parties could take the reigns, all be it not as well as Nintendo could... But they could still hold a steady ship.
