Activision just reported the highest net income for a third party in the last 20 years or so ( they made a little over a billion$ of profit in 2011 with some of the highest margins third party have ever achieved) so despite what most armchair ceos on this site are saying, I would say it's fair to think that they at least know what they have been doing with their franchises, especially Cod and that their financial results demonstrate that their strategy was the right one.......

Of course, cherry pick the one that has been consistently profitable across this generation. Most third parties bled red ink for years, and its only now that PS3 and 360 have reached the time in their life when the market has caught up to them that they reap the rewards for years of red ink

Yea, it wasn't too pretty of a picture for most third party companies this generation. A lot of them closed up shop. Just because Activision profited heavily from CoD sales on (PC, PS3, 360) and from Blizzard (WoW, SC) doesn't really show the whole story of the how the third party companies are doing. Like Khan said that is one hell of a cherry pick. Third party companies suffered for the most part. Why do you think you hear them bitch about used games sales so much lately? Do you hear Nintendo bitching about the used video game market or pirates? Sure they do sometimes but they aren't as vocal as the third party companies right now. Basically the third party companies are going for any scraps they can get to and willing to use any excuse to their failure.

What is a "hardcore game"?

It sold more games than either console, and while it may have slightly fewer million sellers, it has the most 5 million sellers at 18 titles,  (double the PS3) - in fact, the Wii has as many three and a half times as many 20 million sellers as the PS3 has 10 million sellers. We could also take a smaller number like 200K, the Wii has 100 more titles that have sold at least 200K than the PS3. How do you rationalize that into a software market defeat of the Wii?

Or the one figure that really does matter, the total software sales which is over 250 million more than PS3, or, as much software as PSP and PS3 combined.

"Most third parties have been bleeding red ink for years"  I love general statements like that with nothing to back up.  Again ali you are most certainly right, arm chair CEO's at their best.

Earlier in the generation, nearly everyone was doing badly. Fiscaly year 08-09 i seem to recall that only Activision, Ubisoft, and Bandai-Namco came out on top. Many developers have gone out of business and the survivors had to go through hell to get to the point where the strategy of working on the PS3/360 worked out for them

Recently reports have been better, but that comes from years of pouring money into things and hoping they work out okay one day. For most third parties this entire generation was an example of the sunk-cost fallacy

And i must find it amusing that you assume the real businessmen know what they're doing any better than we do. The only thing a business degree really gives you is mastery over the lingo.

i agree with you

that's the reason many Wii games are underappriciated, because the main Wii audience does not buy those games, therefore it is not safe to say ''Ps3/Xbox360 have more quality titles because of more million sellers''

he says ''PS3&360 million sellers have many more high quality titles than Wii's'', because Wii million sellers are not of his tastes anyway

it's taste, he sees quality, i don't, Ps3/Xbox 360 are mainly shooters and some great RPG'S here and there, Wii has more diversity in games, more balanced, especially more platformers which is the genre i like

and the reason Xbox360 got Ps3 in 2011, it's because they decided to follow Nintendo, and more beyond the shooters for once, with Kinect

Why wouldn't the Wii be the leader? Just because the Wii has fewer million-sellers, it still has sold by far the most SW of all three (the figures elude me, but I believe it's about 750mil), and the attach rate for all 3 consoles are very similar.

Nintendo releases fewer games, but pretty much every one will reach a million. And many will reach 5mil, a few 10mil and a couple 20mil. Because people buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games, of course.

This actually warrants a topic?