By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Soundwave on 11 August 2018
Edit Thread
Jumpin said:
Soundwave said:

Because it's a more core centric Nintendo platform and Nintendo's fan base is getting older, and older people have more disposable income than kids. That opens the door for a broader variety of content to do better. Things like FIFA for example are doing alright on Switch. 

To be honest too, there were 3rd party successes on the N64. Things like Turok 1/2 both sold over a million copies, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron was over a million, San Fransico Rush and NFL Quarterback Club (not even a good game), WCW Ntiro sold over a million, even South Park 64 I believe sold over a million. So Switch maybe is just a normalization from the Wii/DS era where the systems were flooded with a bunch of shovelware in large part from 3rd parties chasing the Wii Sports/Brain Training fads. 

Switch is the first Nintendo system that doesn't rely heavily on casuals and doesn't look like a child's toy since the N64, but unlike the N64, cartridges aren't nearly as restrictive anymore. If the N64 had the option for even 200MB cartridges (1/3 a CD) at a reasonable cost it would've gotten way more dev support. Today you can do 16-32GB games for a reasonable cost and next year 64GB cards will be available, not to mention today you have the ability to have game data in download patches via the internet, something impossible during the N64 days. 

This is an example of selective memory. The N64 was NOT very successful for third-party software. The Wii, on the other hand, was Nintendo's most successful console for third-party sales.


The N64 had 53 total million sellers.
The Wii had 160 total million sellers.

Of those 53, 38 of them were published by Nintendo. The Wii had 40 Nintendo published games sell over 1 million.
The N64 had 15 total million sellers that were third party published.
The Wii had 120 total million sellers that were third party published.

To go deeper into total sales:

The N64 sold a total of 225 million games shipped, 133 million were published by Nintendo, leaving a total of  92 million third party.
The Wii had a total of 965 million games shipped, 405 million were published by Nintendo, leaving a total of 560 million third party.

To break it down into percentages: 58% of Wii games sold were third-party.  40% of N64 games were third-party.

The total number of third-party games that sold on Wii is roughly 2.5X higher than the TOTAL number of games sold on N64, over 6 times higher than the total number third party games sold, and a total penetration rate of about double for third party games on the Wii than those compared to the N64.

To compare other million-selling third-party games:
Gameboy has 11
SNES had 29
NES had 34
GBA had 42
3DS has 19 (But 45 first party)
DS had 83 (and a whopping 59 first party)

Whether people like it or not, the Wii was the King of third-party sales when it comes to Nintendo's consoles. DS is the second most successful by quite a distance.

Honestly think that 160 million sellers is overblown, if its VGChartz data that is overblown big time. From sources like third parties themselves, the number would appear to be closer to 30 million third party million sellers to go with 36-37 or so from Nintendo. And most of those third party titles were things like Just Dance, Carnival Games, EA Active, etc. ... stuff that's not a sustainble style of gaming IP that relied on fad trends. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games

https://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-selling-wii-games/r20x

Monster Hunter Tri, Resident Evil 4, Red Steel 1 (not 2), Sonic, Epic Mickey, 1 year of the Call of Duty series appear to be among the few major Wii 3rd party games that topped a million that weren't in that dance/fitness/party/puzzle game category. IMO Switch will beat this by the end of its life cycle, probably fairly easily. 

VGChartz doesn't get data from developers, they estimate/guesstimate most of the data on their site, no offence to them, and then fill in the blanks with whatever official data they get here and there. 

The difference with the N64 is you see titles like NFL Hitz, NFL Quarterback Club, NWO/WCW Nitro, Star Wars: Episode I Racer, South Park 64, Turok 1 and 2, hit a million ... that's pretty impressive considering how expensive the games were how the system only had a userbase of 33 million (mostly because Nintendo cut the legs off the poor machine by insisting on cartridge only). 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 11 August 2018