Carrying a console with purely 1st Party content is very difficult, and definitely not something that a hardware producer wants to do. However, creating a console with good 3rd Party support can be a challenge because there doesn't seem to be any 100% solid factors as to which console the majority of 3rd parties with develop for. Here are some of the factors which I feel are relevent to the amount of 3rd party success that a console will recieve over it's lifetime, but you'll see that it doesn't always follow this pattern.
Sales - Typically, the console with the most hardware sold will also be the one that sells the most software. This would normally encourage 3rd parties to develop for this console, since at heart they are all about making as much money as possible. For example, the PS2 gained mainstream success with the addition of the DVD player, and this meant that there was a large number of people that could potentially buy the games of the 3rd parties. However, we've seen with the Wii this generation that this isn't always the case. Some would argue that since the PS3+360>Wii in sales, this makes sense - but back in 2007/08 it looked like the Wii was going to continue to capture marketshare from its competitors, yet many games didn't feature on the Wii. This implies that there are other factors involved.
POWAH - I'm sure that developing a game for a console with more power would be more fun than for one with less. There is more possibility of making your vision come to life, and the general feeling that you're developing for a cutting-edge piece of hardware. Could the amount of power available in a console be a factor as to how many 3rd party games are developed for it? We've certainly seen a lot of unique games such as Heavy Rain created for PS3 which make the most of the additional oomph.
Dev. Costs - Of course, there can be a point where too much power can be bad for a project. We saw earlier on in the generation that this can have an effect with the movement of MH3 from PS3 to Wii. However, cases like these are fairly rare. However, are 3rd parties more likely to develop cheaper games (ie. minigame compilations) on a console with lower development cost in order to gain maximum profit?
Brand? - Nintendo has a fairly bad record with 3rd parties for seemingly little reason. One minute it's a problem with sales, the next it's about the use of cartridges and currently it seems to be an issue with power. Is it Nintendo's fault for making repeated mistakes, or is it something deeper than that? Nintendo supposedly delayed the release of first party games for the 3DS in order for the 3rd parties to have a market to themselves, but they haven't made good use of the oppotunity. Maybe Nintendo's policies regarding their treatment of 3rd parties need to be looked at for them to recieve more success with them in the future.
These are just a few reasons that I thought of, some probably more relevent than others. Do you think that there is a true secret to 3rd party success?
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