Before long it will be a year and a half into the Wii's lifecycle and at this point it STILL doesn't have the sort of library that you expect the market leading system to have. Is E3 the big announcement platform for third parties? Considering the shadow of its former self that it now is, I wouldn't be betting as much on it as in previous years. Spin it how you want, throw the excuses up all you want, but take it from someone with a soft spot for Nintendo: It's a seriously bad sign that third parties STILL haven't thrown anything much decent behind the Wii (perhaps Capcom excluded), and I honestly doubt it's going to change. WTF is the deal?

After GameCube's 3rd party disaster, and Wii's risky design (low power, not compatible with the other two), 3rd party devs weren't really eager to develop for Wii.

Games for 360 and PS3 were already in the making for a year or longer, since 360 was out first and PS3 was expected to become marketleader again.

Only around May last year it became clear that the Wii would blow everything away. Still developers have this problem that they can't port PS360 games to Wii, so everything has to be rebuild from scratch, including new ways to control it.

Since Wii is clearly marketleader and will probably be around 50 % marketshare end 2008, developers have no choice but to bring their big games to Wii, otherwise shareholders, that don't give a bit about consolewars or graphics, will start complaining why no big games are produced for the market leader.

These "big" games take at least 2 years to develop, as Capcom already announced for Monster Hunter 3, so at the earliest we can expect big games announced at the next E3.

Monster Hunter 3 was the first big game to move platform and many will follow. The rules of economics will force that. Another big announced game is Fatal Frame IV. Here you have 2 of Japans biggest developers announcing a sequel of one of their main series on Wii. It's not going to stop there.

Tales of Symphonia is another pretty big games, rumours of Suikoden and Kingdom Hearts are ver persistant, Mega Man is sorta announced...
Mark my words, E3 will be very big for Nintendo.

Personally (and unfortunately to me) it seems that the console market has taken a "Traditional gaming vs Nintendo" approach.

Because you can't put patience in your Wii and play it.

No, but you can toss Brawl, Galaxy, RE, Zelda, Prime, Zack and Wiki, or lots of other great games for the time being.

Japaneese people are so sick of the Wii that they are trying to do new and different things with it. Nintendo just saved themselves from getting lawyers on their neck.

im starting to wonder if 3rd parties are ever gonna make great single player games for the wii. yeah capcom is doing something, but none of the other big 3ps are following. (which i think will only benefit capcom)

nintendo are the only ones making interesting games across all genres. youve got adventure, platformer, fps, sports, multiplayer party games - a good range

the 3rd parties have....ports, party games

the only genre which seems to have a few decent announced 3p games that interest me is rpg.
tales of symphonia
fragile
crystal bearers

no fps announced (except red steel 2 which im hoping is good)
no action/adventure games (except okami, which is capcom and a port)
sports games have generally been second rate on the wii (hopfully pro evo 2008 will change that)

with these 3 genres, apart from nintendo youve only got maybe 1 or 2 games that could be good, while the ps3 and 360 have a heap announced. And even this year they keep getting games announced. Surely by now the wii should be getting some lovin'

Hey Soriku, you're back!!!
I missed you.

@Man
What about Mushroom Men? That is an Action/Adventure game made by a 3rd party and actually looks like it will be fun.

Everyone needs to just relax. The DS took a year and a half before it became a really solid platform, too. Now look at it--it's a freakin' behemoth. The first year for a console is never 100%. Most don't seem to get any higher than 50%. The first year for the Xbox, Xbox360, DS, and just about everything else was less-than-impressive. Sony had it easy with the PS3 since, by then, their first-gen games benefitted from the experience developers had built leading into 2nd-gen X360 titles.


Last year, a report came out from GameSpot.com that Square-Enix, Capcom, and Sega were refocusing attention away from the PS3 and toward the Wii and DS. It takes time to make games, but they're coming. At that time, the PS3 had lost all Square-Enix support except for the two FFXIII titles (though now there appears to be another that Sony "requested." )  Take-Two and UbiSoft are also putting more focus towards the Wii than before.


And this year looks promising so far. Deadly Creatures, Fragile, Fatal Frame, Monster Lab, Monster Rancher/Hunter, Mushroom Men, Okami, Brothers in Arms, Blast Works, Bully? Sure, they're not Call of Duty 4, Devil May Cry, or Army of Two--but they are unique and potentially good 3rd party efforts (except Fatal Frame, which appears to now be a second-party effort). Plus, Nintendo has Disaster, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Wii Fit (which I don't care about) this year and Animal Crossing and Kirby on the horizon.


On top of which, Factor5 is working on something (which will hopefully redeem the company) and Denis Dyack has hinted strongly at an Eternal Darkness sequel--keep in mind, Nintendo owns that game.

 The Sony fanboys had no problem waiting for the PS3 to pick up steam, and so far, Wii owners have had better exclusives than the PS3 owners.  We can wait a little longer, and I doubt waiting will be all that hard with Smash Bros and Mario Kart launching only about a month apart--and both are online.