60k? I thought Boom Blox was at like 200k worldwide.

I saw commercials for Boom Blox....on a Saturday morning on 4KidsTV. How do you expect kids to want to buy that? Kids don't run up to mommy saying " I want this game" anymore. Plus, you know the advertising for the game is bad when people on this website are calling it BLoom Blox. If people can't get the name right, how can it sell?

As for 3rd parties in general, they are selling good, just check the worldwide charts, and single out Wii sales. They don't want to take into account that their game sucks, which is the reason why it doesn't sell.

No More Heroes and Zack & Wiki had no advertising. Nobody seems to remember that when talking about their sales. They both exceeded sales expectations.

NMH =320k
Z&W = 375k

Don't forget to take into account that they are new IPs, which didn't give them an established userbase to count on and they aren't exactly geared towards wide appeal. Don't even get me started on Okami.

I see it, DarkNight, and I'm not persuaded by it. First, this particular month, Nintendo controlled over 2/3 of the Wii market, and what's happening now is the most important statistic for any publisher. Second, while the statistics you've listed are better than most might have guessed, it's still not great; can you imagine Microsoft controlling 50% of the 360 market? I would guess they own closer to 15-20%, unless you count Mass Effect / Gears as first party (I actually think of them as the most important third party games; not only did they give Epic a very third-party viable platform to develop on, but they also helped finance the project).

 Start off by making good games.  I think a lot of people here would agree on that.  Boom Blox is heralded as being some sort of miracle game.  I own it and I've played it quite a bit.  It is not this be all end all game of greatness people try to make it out to be.  If anything it's an average game that happens to be fun.

Third parties need to market their games to everyone, they also need to put their first string teams on some Wii projects.  

Although to be honest there aren't very many GOOD third party game studios anymore.  Most studios put out one or 2 good titles a year and then go nuts on the below average titles.  If you are going to compete with Nintendo for market share you need to bring your A game everytime you step up to the plate.  So far everyone's bringing minor leaugers up against a pro.

 It's 60k in the U.S. alone. I'm thinking the title was way overtracked by this site, but if you add in Europe and Canada I'm positive it's cracked 100k. 

@ Bodhesatva: I think you're being way too pesimisstic about the situation. While I agree that the HD console development costs are gobbling up profits of old, I don't think the situation on the Wii is as dire as a casual glance might make it seem. True, there are few third-party games that are selling like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, but by the same token I can't name a single game on the Wii that's had more than a fraction of the budget or effort that were thrown into those games.

What I do see is that publisher expectations for their titles are routinely exceeded, which plays a large role in why so many third-parties are starting to get onto the system. As Miyamoto said, they're putting their third-and-fourth stringers on the system, but the games are still selling. I can't think of any publisher who's not satisfied with the results of their Wii games  as a whole so far (Rockstar, perhaps?). I do see publishers on the other two systems going under, or seeing declining profitabilty. This doesn't mean the Wii is guaranteed to sell your game, mind you, but it's proven to be more than the black-hole that the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube were.

This may sound simple to you, but regardless of whether it's unfair or unjust or something, that isn't how these companies will work.

Yes, competing against Nintendo is very hard. Guess what the typical response is to that problem? It isn't "step up our game," it's "find somewhere else to work." That's how businesses work; they find the path of least resistance. Nintendo's strength creates a lot of resistance. Therefore, they will try to find other paths.

I suppose in some just, utopian world, all these companies would try hard to compete with Nintendo, to match their wits against the best -- but in reality many will choose simply to avoid Nintendo altogether because it's a lot easier.

I think nintendo should, develop these games for them then advertize them and give all the profits to 3rd parties.

If you're only getting a 360 for SO4 I'd wait a little and see what happens, as it seems to me that SO4 will 'do a Bioshock' at some point - i.e. after many denials it will nonetheless head for PS3.

Yor're making a big assumption that they care more about selling volume than profits. Without knowing the profitability of titles, it's impossible to determine the business success of a product based on sales alone. 

 Well we probably will know more about SO4 at the end of the year...But it is not bad to have all three consoles.  I can recommend Eternal Sonata =p.

Nevermind the fact 3rd-party Wii software has been selling more than 3rd-party software for any other console.