frankly, i think the 50 dollar price tag hurt too. At 40 dollars, I might have jumped on the game. But a puzzle game just doesn't seem to warrant that high of a price. (Note: I know people on here have said that it's worth it, but just from looking at previews etc, as an average consumer i wouldn't conclude that).

I think marketing hutr as well though as previousl mentioned

Your first set of numbers include first-party sales which makes them useless for this discussion (especially since they're being partially blamed for sales of third-party games).  Also the chart you showed doesn't really show the whole picture.  For example how many titles are competing for those sales?  I would guess far more than are competing for sales on either the PS3 or 360. 

On a completely unrelated note, third-party Wii exclusive games may have problems that PS3 and 360 games don't usually have.  One is that they generally can't be easily ported to other systems so in the case of a game flopping the safety net of putting it on other systems to try to get more sales isn't there.  Another is that much of the target audience on Wii is different than those on the PS3 and 360 and games made for a particular sections of the Wii's diverse audience may not resonate well or at all with the other systems.  Basically if a third-party makes a game from the ground up for the Wii they're pretty much committing themselves to excluding other systems which can be a risky proposition unless they're making a budget title.

I know a baby seal will die now, but for a different perspective, this is the current Wii software sales top list from Webhallen, quite a large games store in Sweden:

(I included the local prices because they explain the high sales for Red Steel etc)

1 - Okami 379 kr
2 - Mario Kart Wii (inkl. Wii Racing Wheel) 549 kr
3 - Wii Fit 999 kr
4 - The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess 449 kr
5 - Rayman - Raving Rabbids 169 kr
6 - Rayman - Raving Rabbids 2 249 kr
7 - Red Steel 129 kr
8 - No More Heroes 449 kr
9 - Guitar Hero 3 - Legends of Rock (Inkl. gitarr) 629 kr
10 - Wii Play + Wiimote - Handkontroll 549 kr
11 - Metroid Prime 3 - Corruption 399 kr
12 - Super Mario Galaxy 499 kr
13 - The Simpsons Game 219 kr
14 - Resident Evil 4 - Wii Edition 399 kr
15 - Sports Island 349 kr
16 - Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games 579 kr
17 - Boom Blox 549 kr
18 - Harvest Moon - Magical Melody 349 kr
19 - Mario Party 8 499 kr
20 - Zack & Wiki - Quest for Barbaros Treasure  499 kr

Boom Blox marketing obviously failed. A game from EA and Spielberg should not end up in the "cult classic" category with No More Heroes and Zack and Wiki and Okami. They should have just got the word out there that Spielberg has a Wii game, and not just to 8-12 yo males.

Print ads in gaming publications and a few more mainstream publications, plus some TV spots on cable just getting the Spielberg name out there would still be worthwhile. If Spielberg name won't sell the game, why on earth did they hook up with Spielberg in the first place?

Its almost like EA themselves were disappointed Spielberg didn't want to start with an epic adventure game just like the fanboys were before they heard Boom Blox still rocked, and so they marketed to a tiny demographic to just let the game die and move on to the "real" Spielberg games.

 Agreed, I have heard from dozens of people that they would buy it at $30, but $50 is just not worth it.

just wait untill some SMART 3th party developer makes Tetris, sales will explode.

And you're article doesn't take into account the development budgets for games. Without knowing how much a game cost to develop, how can we call it a bomb based on sales figures alone? If a game only cost $2 million to develop and low marketing costs, it won't take very much sales to become profitable. Whereas a game that costs $20 million with a massive ad campaign has to have at least an order of magnitude greater sales to reach the same profitability. 

@Legend: I see you completely missed the chart that states third parties averaged around 50% of all the sales on Wii. Take 50% of 50 million you are left with 25 million third party game sales. Now go back and look at the other systems numbers. Notice anything?

Nearly 2/3 of all game sold in May were first party, that's the more damning statistic.


Third parties are in so much trouble. They're struggling to make money on the PS3/360 due to low install base/high development costs, but they've spent the last decade moving away from the market leader, and now are finding it tough to move back on.

I honestly don't know if it's better to keep working to break into the Wii market, or just accept that they fail, suck it up, and make way less money on the PS3/360. I don't think anyone would argue that there isn't a great deal more money to be made on the Wii; it's just that most third parties can't figure out how to make it. 

 Normally I'd agree that the ratio is pretty bad, but I don't think it is this time. Remember, Nintendo's just released Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii came out at the very end of last month, and Brawl is still selling well. Add to that the fact that Galaxy and other Nintendo games continue to have legs, and I think this is more indicative of Nintendo's flooding the system with a lot of AAA games in a short period. This shows in the fact that nineteen of the top thirty games in the month sold on a Nintendo system, so the PS2, PS3, 360, and PSP all had to split the remaining eleven slots between themselves. Nintendo's the 400 pound man that just cannonballed into the pool: it'll take a bit of time for the waters to settle again.