What is the relationship between the first party output on a console/PC platform and other game success rates?

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Here is my belief on third party sales.  It depends if the third party game is trying to be "top of the genre" or not.  On the NES there were lots of 2D platformers, but none of them sold anywhere near what the Mario games sold.  At the same time, a developer could make a platformer with a fairly modest budget, and they'd still make a good profit.  They were benefitting from people's love of Mario, so it was easier for them to make a profit.  A lot of people wanted other platformers to play in between Mario games.  On the other hand, the top NES RPGs were the Dragon Quest games.  These are the among the best selling third party games on the NES and in Japan they were actually selling at least as well (or better) than the top first party games.  Nintendo didn't make any RPGs on the NES, so Dragon Quest came in and became top dog.

You can see this sort of thing on the SNES too.  There were lots of platformers again.  However the top third party games were RPGs and Fighting games (like Street Fighter).  Nintendo didn't make either of these genres.  And just recently, the Switch just released Monster Hunter.  We can all see that it is selling like a major first party title, and Nintendo doesn't really make a game that is anything like Monster Hunter.  Over on Playstation, I originally thought the first Uncharted game was a Tomb Raider rip off, but nowadays all of those Naughty Dog Third Person Shooters blow away Tomb Raider in sales.  So basically, I think small budget third party games benefit from picking a popular genre, but the really big sellers would rather not compete directly with a big budget first party game.