It took the DS 2 years to get decent third party games on a regular basis. I expect it will take the Wii as long as well. Which is fine, it hasn't hurt the DS at all.

Sullla said: The notion that Wii third party games don't sell well is a total myth. They've sold quite well from the very launch of the system to the present. Not "sell well considering they're low-quality games", just sell well period. Let's compare Wii third party sales to PS3 third party sales; after all, both consoles launched at exactly the same time. Wii Million Sellers (4) Mario and Sonic (1.46m) Resident Evil 4 (1.18m) Rayman Raving Rabbids (1.17m) Red Steel (1.03m) (Guitar Hero 3 is at 0.99m, but I'll be nice and not count it!) PS3 Million Sellers (2) Call of Duty 4 (1.15m) Assassin's Creed (1.13m) Looks like the Wii is doing much better there. How about 500k sellers? Wii 500k Sellers (11) Mario and Sonic (1.46m) Resident Evil 4 (1.18m) Rayman Raving Rabbids (1.17m) Red Steel (1.03m) Guitar Hero 3 (990k) Sonic and the Secret Rings (790k) Tiger Woods 07 (750k) Cooking Mama (550k) My Sims (550k) Trauma Center (510k) Umbrella Chronicles (500k) Total: 9.48m PS3 500k Sellers (10) Call of Duty 4 (1.15m) Assassin's Creed (1.13m) FIFA 08 (800k) Pro Evo 2008 (670k) Need for Speed Carbon (640k) Ridge Racer 7 (610k) Need for Speed Prostreet (600k) Madden 08 (580k) Oblivion (550k) Call of Duty 3 (530k) Total: 7.26m Not as dominant, true, but certainly no worse than the PS3 has done. Even though the Wii third party efforts have obviously been much worse than their PS3 counterparts, the Wii has actually done better in overall sales. And that's ignoring the fact that Nintendo has NINE first-party million sellers! (Sony only has two.) Contrary to what its detractors would like to believe, the Wii moves a lot of software. Not just Nintendo software either - it sells games, period. Most third parties have done quite well, although you'd never get that impression from reading Internet message boards. Overall, I've seen absolutely nothing to indicate that the Wii won't follow the DS's lifetime trend for third party support, which goes something like this: Year 1: almost entirely first party Year 2: some third party support Year 3: majority of third party support For the DS, those years were 2005/06/07. For the Wii, it will be 2007/08/09. It has nothing to do with fanboyism; this is a business, and third parties must support the platform with the largest install base to make money. We watched the early stages of this play out in 2007, and we'll see it further develop over the next two years.

That post almost proves all by itself that 3rd party games don't sell well on the Wii.  It may look like they sell well when you look at the raw numbers in comparison to 3rd party games' sales on the PS3, but when you consider that the Wii has more than double the install base of the PS3, then you'd expect there to be more than double 3rd party games' sales than the PS3, which there are in million sellers, but not even close in 500k sellers.

StarcraftManiac said: endurance said: wii will start to get more support in 08 and 09 when it will have more then 50%of the market share Wii wont get 50% marketshare. For that to happen it'll have to have reached the combined sales of the X360 and PS3... = Not gonna happen in 2008. Cuzz it ain't outselling the 2 systems combined in the most crucial time of the year (holiday season)... It'll keep floating at around 42-45% whilst the gap is widening between it's competitors.

 The only reason Wii isn't selling twice the 360 and PS3 combined this holiday season is because they can't prosuce that many consoles. Once Christmas is over the HD consoles' sales will go to shit and Wii will still be sold out for next 6 months at least. And supply problem isn't Nintendo's fault, no console hase ever sold 17 million in the first 13 months.

VAMP said: Sullla said: The notion that Wii third party games don't sell well is a total myth. They've sold quite well from the very launch of the system to the present. Not "sell well considering they're low-quality games", just sell well period. Let's compare Wii third party sales to PS3 third party sales; after all, both consoles launched at exactly the same time. Wii Million Sellers (4) Mario and Sonic (1.46m) Resident Evil 4 (1.18m) Rayman Raving Rabbids (1.17m) Red Steel (1.03m) (Guitar Hero 3 is at 0.99m, but I'll be nice and not count it!) PS3 Million Sellers (2) Call of Duty 4 (1.15m) Assassin's Creed (1.13m) Looks like the Wii is doing much better there. How about 500k sellers? Wii 500k Sellers (11) Mario and Sonic (1.46m) Resident Evil 4 (1.18m) Rayman Raving Rabbids (1.17m) Red Steel (1.03m) Guitar Hero 3 (990k) Sonic and the Secret Rings (790k) Tiger Woods 07 (750k) Cooking Mama (550k) My Sims (550k) Trauma Center (510k) Umbrella Chronicles (500k) Total: 9.48m PS3 500k Sellers (10) Call of Duty 4 (1.15m) Assassin's Creed (1.13m) FIFA 08 (800k) Pro Evo 2008 (670k) Need for Speed Carbon (640k) Ridge Racer 7 (610k) Need for Speed Prostreet (600k) Madden 08 (580k) Oblivion (550k) Call of Duty 3 (530k) Total: 7.26m Not as dominant, true, but certainly no worse than the PS3 has done. Even though the Wii third party efforts have obviously been much worse than their PS3 counterparts, the Wii has actually done better in overall sales. And that's ignoring the fact that Nintendo has NINE first-party million sellers! (Sony only has two.) Contrary to what its detractors would like to believe, the Wii moves a lot of software. Not just Nintendo software either - it sells games, period. Most third parties have done quite well, although you'd never get that impression from reading Internet message boards. Overall, I've seen absolutely nothing to indicate that the Wii won't follow the DS's lifetime trend for third party support, which goes something like this: Year 1: almost entirely first party Year 2: some third party support Year 3: majority of third party support For the DS, those years were 2005/06/07. For the Wii, it will be 2007/08/09. It has nothing to do with fanboyism; this is a business, and third parties must support the platform with the largest install base to make money. We watched the early stages of this play out in 2007, and we'll see it further develop over the next two years. That post almost proves all by itself that 3rd party games don't sell well on the Wii. It may look like they sell well when you look at the raw numbers in comparison to 3rd party games' sales on the PS3, but when you consider that the Wii has more than double the install base of the PS3, then you'd expect there to be more than double 3rd party games' sales than the PS3, which there are in million sellers, but not even close in 500k sellers.

What's your point? Third parties don't give a shit if games sell well "relative to the userbase". They'd prefer sell to 10% of the PS2 userbase than 20% of the Gamecube userbase.

 

omgwtfbbq said: VAMP said: That post almost proves all by itself that 3rd party games don't sell well on the Wii. It may look like they sell well when you look at the raw numbers in comparison to 3rd party games' sales on the PS3, but when you consider that the Wii has more than double the install base of the PS3, then you'd expect there to be more than double 3rd party games' sales than the PS3, which there are in million sellers, but not even close in 500k sellers. What's your point? Third parties don't give a shit if games sell well "relative to the userbase". They'd prefer sell to 10% of the PS2 userbase than 20% of the Gamecube userbase.

Precisely.  And you are overlooking so many factors.  Third party PS3 games may have a better attachment ratio but if Wii 3rd party games sell more that's all the developer cares about.  If a Wii version of a game sells 500,000 and a PS3 version sells 350,000 of course the 3rd party would be much more satisfied with the Wii sales.  And this does not even take into account the difference in cost to make a Wii game compared to a PS3 game which means the PS3 game would even have to sell much more than a Wii game to make the developer the same amount of money.  And with the gap between Wii and PS3 growing each week developers are increasingly going to be better off making games for the Wii than PS3.  The only problem is the similarility between PS3 and 360 and their vast difference with Wii which means developers can make a game for PS3 and 360 to increase sales.  So until Wii has over 50% of the market share developers will continue to favour 360/PS3 over Wii for their blockbusters.

FreeTalkLive rocks! said: Vizion said: Wouldn't it be nice to see high quality games like Bioshock, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Call of Duty 4 on the Wii?  The best versions of Godfather and Scarface are on the Wii.  Those are high quality games.  The best version of the 2005 game of the year, RE4, is on the Wii.  Mario and Sonic at the Olympics is the best 3rd party console party game ever made.   The Wii has been proven- it can have high quality 3rd party ports :) No seriously, just give it time.  Wii owns Japan and is the major foce in every other major market.  If you build it...

DS owns Japan not the Wii.  As for 3rd parties in Japan here're some numbers on how the top 15 publishers are doing in Japan with their Wii games (chart is from NeoGAF, numbers are from Media Create LTD up until December 2nd, 2007):

Publisher       Games     Total        Median

1      Nintendo         17     8 294 000       487 882

2      Namco-Bandai     10       658 000        65 800

3      Square-Enix       1       477 000       477 000

4      Capcom            4       266 000        66 500

5      Konami            5       221 000        44 200

6      SEGA              6       216 000        36 000

7      Hudson            7       199 500        28 500

8      Takara-Tomy       2       136 000        68 000

9      MMV               3        82 000        27 333

10      Koei              5        81 000        16 200

11      Tecmo             2        76 000        38 000

12      Ubisoft           3        58 000        19 333

13      Banpresto         1        56 000        56 000

14      AQ Interactive    1        53 000        53 000

15      E.A Japan         5        52 000        10 400

Now looking at those numbers does anyone really think Japan will influence how Western developers like E.A. and Ubisoft plan their games?  Seeing numbers like those and realizing that the Wii will likely be the dominant console in Japan is probably what's influencing companies like Capcom for example to focus on games that cater specifically to North American and European audiences rather than just bringing Japanese games to them.  Capcom even said at their Gamer's Day this year that they're seeing sales growth in North America and Europe and shrinking in Japan.

 

Aj_habfan said: Avinash_Tyagi said: HappySqurriel said: Aj_habfan said: You could have had those games, but Nintendo chose to give you a cheaper console. You can't have everything, even though you think you deserve it. I know ... What was I thinking, lower performance systems like the PS2 never saw games like Gran Theft Auto produced for them. After all, the Wii is lucky to get a game more advanced than pong ... lol, yeah there is no way a system like Wii can have enough power to run the top rated games of all time...oh wait Actually, it's true. For most of these new games, it would take more then a port to bring it to the Wii, they would have to redo the whole thing. PS2 was very lucky because most games were developed for it first, then brought to other consoles. If GTA 4 was made for the Wii it could be easily brought over, making you think it was as able as the other ones, like which you think about PS2.

I think you're missing the joke. The top 2 rated games of all time are Mario Galaxy and Ocariana of Time. Both only playable on the Wii this generation. In other words, real quality has little to do with your hardware, and everything to do with your software. Nintendo made a game, that according to the critics is on average better then every 360 and PS3 game out there. So to say that a third party company couldn't come up with big games for the Wii is basically just accusing them of incompetance who need high powered technology as a shield to hide behind pretty graphics and poor design choices.

don't forget the third highest rated game that is also exclusive to wii this gen, mp1 :)

VAMP, my response to you would be to stop thinking in terms of attach rate. How a game sells is what matters, not how it sells relative to the size of the install base. This notion that you can simply multiply the software sales of a smaller console by a scaling factor is inherently flawed. If that were true, then Halo 2 would have been the best-selling game of the last generation. Look: the XBox had 1/5 the install base of the PS2, so multiply Halo 2's 8m sales by 5 = 40m sales! ZOMG!

Obviously that's a flawed comparison. Third parties sold vastly more software units on the PS2 than on any other platform, because the total number of consumers available to purchase their games was so much larger. I don't think they cared very much that they could have had a better attach rate on the other systems. And remember, the Gamecube had the highest attach rate of all time. It also had one of the lowest third-party support levels of any console. Those two factors are directly linked.

Think in terms of sales, not attach rates. :)

Now for my second topic. Ahh, Legend. I see you continue to miss the point as well. Posting a list of how well Nintendo sells relative to other publishers, then using this to imply that third parties shouldn't develop games for Nintendo systems. First of all, this is a logical non sequitor. The gaming market is not a zero-sum one; just because Nintendo first party games sell well does NOT mean that third party games must sell poorly. It's entirely possible for both to do strong sales; see for example the NES, SNES, Gameboy, and DS. Or to be more blunt, just because Nintendo first party software sells well on the DS, does that mean every third party should support the PSP? That seems like a losing strategy. Software sells great on the Wii; there's more than enough room for strong sales of both first and third party stuff.

Secondly, have you ever considered that the reason Nintendo sales are so strong in Japan is precisely BECAUSE third parties have been ignoring the Wii? The 360 + PS3 install base in Japan is about 1/3 the size of the Wii. If Namco, Square, and Konami are getting killed in Japanese software sales, the correct response is not to complain "Wii first party games are too strong - let's develop for competitors with poorly selling platforms!" Obviously the answer that makes the most sense is to develop for the profitable, dominant Wii and DS platforms. Once third parties start supporting the market leading console, Nintendo will stop having such a skewed "Pacman" on the software charts.

Again, this is not a zero-sum market. It's entirely possible for first and third parties to succeed on the same platform. Just because millions of people are buying Mario Galaxy doesn't mean that millions also aren't buying Resident Evil, Mario and Sonic, Guitar Hero, and so on. As I said in my previous post, the Wii just moves software PERIOD.

Wii doesn't need to outsell both the 360 and Ps3 combined during december, they just need to during the rest of the year. That is the Wii's strength.