So third party publishers have been scaling back or out right stopping all development on 3DS for the last few months. Not so apparent in Japan where companies appear to have had more faith in Nintendo. But in North America many publishers have announced they have scaled down or completely ceased development on 3DS.

The biggest third party supporter of Nintendo last generation and supposedly the biggest supporter of 3DS when the console launched was among the first big western publishers to drop almost every title they had in development. UbiSoft was the biggest third party supporter of Nintendo last generation. Earlier this year after initial short comings a source from inside UbiSoft had supposedly suggested UbiSoft was going to cease 3DS development. Many game media suggested that UbiSoft was going to halt development and wait to see if Nintendo could turn 3DS around. Originally UbiSoft denied the story re-assuring everyone that UbiSoft games were still coming most notably the Assasins Creed title. In fact at PAX in august UbiSoft had told me that Assasins Creed was coming along nicely and they had no intentions of cancelling it. Within days of coming home I found out multiple UbiSoft products had been cancelled.

Other publishers like THQ and Electronic Arts started cancelling games very early in the 3DS's life span. Other publishers like Majesco and apparently Activision also delayed games ceasing development to see if Nintendo could pull the 3DS out of its downward spiral.

So with so many western publishers having either cancelled their line-ups or delayed their development till 3DS turned around, what is going to happen now? I mean Nintendo just announced that they have sold 6.68 million 3DS units, in fact they have sold more 3DS units in the period of time since launch then they did DS.

This is very significant because DS launched prior to the recession and also launched with a lot more software support. But Nintendo announced 3DS software sales are actually down despite the huge growth in hardware sales. Analysts have directly blamed the lack of new software saying that Nintendo and third parties dropped the ball by not providing the consumers with software.

So a question that needs to be answered. Now that 3DS is actually out performing DS according to Nintendo, will the third parties return to the table? Can we expect UbiSoft to resume full fledged development of new games? Can we expect EA, THQ, Activision and Majesco all to restart their engines and get us some games?

Also what does this mean for Japanese publishers and developers who continued developing despite Nintendo's difficult time? Does this mean western studios won't have many new games to release till mid 2012? If that is the case do western third parties stand to lose a fortune? Also do you think some publishers/developers might remain skeptical and not return to the table?

Western third parties were always hesitant about handhelds, and they see the mobile space as a much easier place to work in. Western third parties likely won't come back, but with Monster Hunter in Japan they could reposition themselves to hold Japanese third party dominance through the cycle, leaving Vita with only the more obscure stuff, depending on how well they capitalize on it

(and before anyone pounces: does Vita really have any top-tier Japanese stuff that isn't multiplat with PS3, 360, or PS3 via PSN? They have a lot of games announced, but where's the beef out of that?)

For third parties to return they would've had to be at the table initially.

But I thought that 3rd parties were really going to embrace the 3DS? This is what I have heard from everyone working for Nintendo and all over the internet boards.

Maybe i have the wrong idea, but western 3rd parties never bet on DS as much as they did on Xbox 360 and PS3.
Look at EA, THQ and Ubisoft`s top 50 games and you will see how either there weren`t all that many core games or sales for those games weren`t that great (as in being able to invest further).

DS was a machine for casual games and Nintendo games - mostly.
If Nintendo can "show" these developers that a core market exists on 3DS, then, core games might end up on 3DS.
Let`s hope that games like MGS 3, Kid Icarus, Resident Evil Rev., Ace Combat, etc., succeed. That way 3rd parties can be persuaded to really bet on 3DS.

Of the 76 3DS titles in VGC database we have a total of 8.88 million pieces of software sold. Subtract Nintendo titles and we have 5.28 million units of software sold for 3rd parties. I wouldn't be surprised if alot of those titles didn't even make a profit. 3DS software sales are still depressingly low despite the hardware moving at the new pricepoint. Lower than Its predecessor and the Wii both of which are practically not receiving any new software and haven't been for a while.

People say wait for the holiday season. I will but I see only 2 Nintendo games and 1 3rd party game that will sell well. 3rd parties don't care if Nintendo software does well. Look at the Wii and the DS to find your proof. They abandoned both of those moderately successful ships. Why would they stick around on this one?

I suspect it will be much like Kinect. Amazing opening and pitiful legs for the rest of year.

Some of the VGC Database titles haven't launched yet. Though I must agree if those are the sales figures they are very very bad. Another reason for such low sales figures is that retailers simply aren't carrying the majority of 3DS games. The publishers can't get their games on store shelves. NIS specifically stated that retailers only carry the best of the best and prefer carrying sequels and such over new IP and other titles that aren't well established. Of those 76 games how many are available globally? then of those how many do retailers actually carry?

In the end a large reason for a lot of the failures is probably attributed to poor marketing, retailers not wanting to carry anything they aren't guaranteed to make tons of money on. Also note that a lot of the failing titles aren't really high quality software either. Though I am very surprised to see Driver doing so poorly.

I think Nintendo is going to have to prove to third parties that software will sell. Hopefully this doesn't end up like PSP, also at this point in the original DS's life were there 76 titles on the market? If there were then I would probably conclude that they didn't sell all that much better either.

I mean this is a launch and at launch you don't usually expect 76 titles. Then so many of those titles are simply not high quality and many lack the marketing and branding to make them successful. In fact a lot of similar titles on the DS launched way into its life span still sold like shit. Just look at UbiSoft's games on DS and you will see so many titles that did just as bad as the worst 3DS ones!

I can think of 2 off the top of my head: Monster Hunter 3G and Inazuma Eleven Go.

You realise that 3DS being slightly ahead of DS using improper non aligned comparision is not going to have any effect on big corporations right ?

If Nintendo wants those 3rd parties back they need to show them strong hardware AND software in Christmas period.

And even if third parties return after that with typical software development cycle length those game will arrive in 2013.

Next year you will be playing games that were started in 2010/2011. So prepare for another software drough period.

I didn't think of Inazuma Eleven Go. How much do these titles usually sell? Japan only titles I assume.