From what has been said by several developers it costs between 1/4 and 1/2 as much to produce a Wii game that is similar to a PS3/XBox 360 game; on top of this, as you have commented on, many Wii games are much small in scope and might cost between 1/4 and 1/2 as much as a larger "High Production Value" game.

Now, with the success of the Wii it is highly likely that third party publishers will target the Wii with (at least) equal resources to the PS3 and XBox 360. I personally expect that this money will be split between "High Production Value" games and the type of Wii games we have seen todate; if these resources are split equally between the scales of games you could end up seeing a similar number of "High Production Value" games (or potentially twice as many) on the Wii as are being released on the PS3 and XBox 360.

Will this shift happen immediately?

Certainly not, it takes much longer to develop one of these "High Production Value" games than it does the types of games we have seen so far; on top of that some publishers have not accepted the reality of the situation and are arriving to the Wii very late.

Yes i also believe ports of big games like resident evil 5 will emerge on the wii and some of square/enix big guns will jump ship soon. So it's only matter of time or money evaluation on this projects?

i don't think the wii will ever get bames with the high production values of soemthing like bioshock from third parties, Nintendo have high production values, i would expect quality form them for sure.

I think it will take time. Last year was anything they could do fast as most 3rd parties had gven up on Nintendo after the last two generations. This year you will see some decent games that have had a medium development time. (In a recent interview the monster lab developers say they have been working on it for 18 months, and while good I don't think the game is any way epic). By next year you will start to see one or two big titles but I am guessin 2010 will be the one and only year for big development cost titles on the wii. After that 3rd parties will start transitioning the big teams for the next generation.

I think Square will show us the big games first. My prediction is that the Final Fantasy for the Wii will be the first one. Reports are of that is is trouble. I say rubbish, I think they are retooling it into a major budget single player epic game expierience. Then we will get Kindom Hearts or something equally massive.

I think Capcom will make at least one huge title for the Wii. Ubisoft will spend some cash but I don't think their top team will be invovlved. EA I don't care unless you are actually referring to Bioware but I think they have too many projects on their plate. Sega will bring as big a title as the can muster but I don't think that is big enough to qualify.

Part of the problem is many 3rd parties see 360/PS3/PC as one platform so unless the Wii passes the other two combined it still wont get a lot of high rollers. Most of the 3rd party exlusives for the HD systems involved millions of dollars from Sony, and MS. Nintendo just doesn't do that. Maybe a to a small extent for games like Monster Hunter but only because that is mainly a game for the Japanease audience. You may see other high profile Japanease targeted games come to the Wii, but only if the market promises bigger sales they they are getting now.

But much like in the car market devlopers like to have halo games. No nice the FPS game. In the car market a halo car is something like the Corvette or Ford GT that get people in the showroom and dreaming of your product, then they take home the Focus or Cobalt. Big Developers like to have this huge game that everyone hears about and is so pretty in all the press conferences. Then liek Ubisoft has said they sell a bunch of small projects on the Wii to pay for it. :)

PS360 games cost more and thus have to sell more. As more high cost games come out on these consoles it will make for a more competitive marketplace where selling these numbers is increasingly difficult for a lot of high budget games (the biggest ones like MGS, FF, COD, GeoW... will be fine of course).

 This will make an environment where it will be increasingly harder to justify high budget games that aren't sure fire hits on the PS360 and the choice will be between making a middle of the road PS360 game or a high budget Wii game with similar amount of money with the Wii game having to most selling potential due to the bigger userbase (middle to high budget games started now will come out when the Wii has 50% marketshare or very close to it).

Competition among third parties on the 360 and PS3 is very fierce and that's why many games on those systems have high production values. In comparison the vast majority of games on the Wii look like crap so what incentive is there for third parties to have high production values when games like Wii Sports and Wii Play sell so well on the system?

Okay, my tuppence worth:

A large number of 3rd party developers are now wanting a piece of the Wii, but there is and will still be some caution surrounding what games and what kind of budget should be spent on said game.

Have a look at the top 20 Wii games worldwide; there are only 7 of those 20 titles that are 3rd party, and the highest selling 3rd party title had Mario in it, so it was likely to sell anyway.  The next title is Guitar Hero III clocking in at 1.5m worldwide.

Now seeing as the Wii has a worldwide userbase of 20m, thats not a huge amount.  Most of the other top 20 titles are coming in around the 1m mark.

Look at EA as a publisher, all of their 17 Wii titles are all well under 1m.

Here is a little comparison.  Compare the top 20 of the Wii with the PS3.  The Wii remember has more than double the consoles in peoples home as well.  I have added up the total sales of all 3rd party titles and here goes:

Wii:

7 third party titles in top 20, with accummulated sales of 9.8m with a 20.5m userbase

PS3:

15 third party titles in top 20, with accummulated sales of 13.6m with a 9.5m userbase

As you can see, it is harder for Wii games to push themselves into the top 20 and sell the same amount compared to the 1st party games.

Also, Wii games are cheaper than PS3 games and doesn't Nintendo take a good chunk of the royalties for each disc as well?

Anyway, IMHO, I reckon it's not worth it for a 3rd party developer to spend a BIG budget on a Wii game.  It's a risk that they do not need to take.  They can spend 5m on a game and sell 1m units and make a healthy profit.

davygee said: Okay, my tuppence worth: A large number of 3rd party developers are now wanting a piece of the Wii, but there is and will still be some caution surrounding what games and what kind of budget should be spent on said game. Have a look at the top 20 Wii games worldwide; there are only 7 of those 20 titles that are 3rd party, and the highest selling 3rd party title had Mario in it, so it was likely to sell anyway.  The next title is Guitar Hero III clocking in at 1.5m worldwide. Now seeing as the Wii has a worldwide userbase of 20m, thats not a huge amount.  Most of the other top 20 titles are coming in around the 1m mark. Look at EA as a publisher, all of their 17 Wii titles are all well under 1m. Here is a little comparison.  Compare the top 20 of the Wii with the PS3.  The Wii remember has more than double the consoles in peoples home as well.  I have added up the total sales of all 3rd party titles and here goes: Wii: 7 third party titles in top 20, with accummulated sales of 9.8m with a 20.5m userbase PS3: 15 third party titles in top 20, with accummulated sales of 13.6m with a 9.5m userbase As you can see, it is harder for Wii games to push themselves into the top 20 and sell the same amount compared to the 1st party games. Also, Wii games are cheaper than PS3 games and doesn't Nintendo take a good chunk of the royalties for each disc as well? Anyway, IMHO, I reckon it's not worth it for a 3rd party developer to spend a BIG budget on a Wii game.  It's a risk that they do not need to take.  They can spend 5m on a game and sell 1m units and make a healthy profit.

This definately is the best "3rd parties don't on Wii" -post i've ever seen (although that's not what you're saying). Now you need to take into consideration the marketing budget. Some of those PS3 games have been heavily marketed and some even bundled with hardware while Wii games haven't really been marketed. So it's even cheaper to make a Wii game, when it's not marketed at all. Now i naturally didn't check this, but the only big named 3rd party games, that i can recall, on Wiis top 20 are Guitar Hero, Mario and Sonic, Sonic and the Secret Rings and Rayman Raving Rabbids. 3rd party Wii games that have been marketed, that i know of, are Guitar Hero, Redsteel and RRR. So we can rightfully assume that established franchises and marketed games sell on Wii. Which they do on PS3 too. The real problem in comparing the sales, can be seen in what 3rd parties put on platforms; Wii got Dewy's Adventure, which came practically out of nowhere, while PS3 gets MGS4, which has been hyped for 2 years in every expo. Or Wii got Manhunt 2 and 360/PS3 are getting GTA4. Wii games are cheaper and Nintendo takes royalties, but the royalties on Wii propably are less than on PS3 (depends, on game and contract, i don't think Konami pays much, if at all, royalties from MGS4). On an off-topic side note, can't someone ban DSLover, he's been bumping old threads all day without contributing anything to discussion.