Being that most third party publishers are reporting far lower profits (or potentially increased losses) even though they heavily supported the XBox 360 and PS3, I think it is fair to assume that the high revenues of certain XBox 360 games may be negated by the high costs of development (and high losses to unsuccessful games).

If third party publishers were reporting record profits I would agree with you that they might continue focusing on the XBox 360 and PS3; at the rate things are going the companies that continue at this level of support will not be around in 2 years.

That's some AstroLad logic there. In a perfect world EA could make games for the PS2 forever.

360 and ps3 games do have higher development cost, so the wii may seem like a better option for developers who are just starting out.

It's difficult to say with certainty, but I'd bet you that the losses are heavily weighted towards the PS3 now, not the 360, and that these losses will diminish as current-gen engines are refined and completed. There's so much money invested in the 360/PS3 now it's effectively impossible to pull out. Divert some resources to the Wii? Sure. Absolutely. But abandoning the trilogies (Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect) and 360/PS3-centric titles, not to mention the expensive middleware and licensing fees is almost impossible at this point. It won't happen.

Lastly, the Wii's appeal is now proven (it clearly isn't going anywhere), but it's also clear that most developers just do not know what to do with the fanbase. Resident Evil soars, but NiGHTS bombs. Carnival Games worked, so should they just make crappy mini games? Possibly, although looking at those monster Galaxy sales, it's hard to say that. And now Guitar Hero is doing extremely well, too. In short, the Wii is uncertain territory, as it's not really clear what works and what doesn't yet, and publishers like EA do not like uncertainty. It's not like I know these people personally, but given EA's track record, I'd bet you a dozen donuts that they're very queasy about leaving their comfort zone -- sports, shooting, and racing.

The Wii is clearly profitable, but no one outside of Nintendo is exactly sure how to make money on it, and I think a lot of third parties will just be afraid to try anything serious because there isn't a clear track record of what works on the system. 

I wasn't suggesting that the PS3 and XBox 360 were going to lose all of their support, just that third party publishers where going to have to change their overall strategy ...

Basically, the PSP and PS2 are likely going to see a dramatic reduction in third party support in the near future and the XBox 360 and PS3 are probably going to see a consolidation of resources (more multi-platform games) and possibly a slight reduction in support. The platforms which will pick up the newly available resources are the Wii and Nintendo DS.

 With a rapidly growing uderbase, it has to be steadily more appealing to developers to create a game that they just like themselves... with the amount of Wiis flooding homes of all ages it will be easier to sell their 3rd party games, at least when enough users have teh same tastes to buy a specific game genre.

@luckduck

Developers just starting out need to work on PSN/XBL games cost barely anything and make a hefty profit.

I'm not even sure Legend disagrees with that, Happy. The original topic was about a "MASSIVE change" in the industry, and what you're suggesting is much more of a gradual and predictable shift in industry resources.

Maybe he disagrees with that, but I doubt it. I certainly don't. 

I'm saying the games that third parties are making for the PC/PS3/360 are different from the ones being made for the Wii. Look at the vast majority of games being announced for the Wii (even newly announced games) and almost all of them have a casual slant where the opposite seems to be the case with the PC/PS3/360.

They really are seperate markets and I'm just disagreeing with anyone who is claiming that the Wii is suddenly going to start getting the majority of hardcore exclusives dispite any evidence of it so far. I'm not disagreeing that the Wii will get a lot of games, I think it will, but that most of them will be what we're currently seeing now and that is casual games.

This is a totally reasonable expectation. Legend isn't saying Wii games don't sell. Legend isn't saying that the Wii won't see increasing third party support. Legend isn't even saying that the Wii third party support will remain mediocre in quality; he's just saying that the Wii is going to get more of its style of games and the 360/PS3/PC is going to continue getting their style of games, and that this "MASSIVE change" isn't going to result in all the Halos and Gears of War and Metal Gears of the world appearing as Wii exclusives.

And he backs this view with evidence: there still hasn't been announced a major third party game with the sort of "grit" that the games mentioned above exhibit. His position is logical and well founded, people.

Legend -- please let me know if I've misunderstood you.