I expect to see the Wii get shafted the bulk of this generation. Third Party Developers are timid and flighty, much like your typical consumer, they form their opinion about a console in the first couple months of its life. It won't be until the Wii2 comes out that there is any hope of third party developers jumping ship and even then they may still want to boycott the Wii.

Third Part Developers don't like Nintendo. They don't like making games for it. They don't want to support a console that can control its own fate, they want a console like the PS3 or 360 that is dependent on third party support. The Wii's success, rather than drawing them in has made them fearful or envious of it.

In summation, Third Party Developers dislike the Wii for at least one of the following reasons.

- The Wii isn't dependent on third party support therefor third party developers feel a lack of control of thier own future on such a console and lean towards consoles like the 360 and PS3 which are more dependent on their third party support and throwing out money for it.

- They feel they have to make casual or quirky games to appeal to the Wii audience which, let's face it, they suck at doing.

- They feel they're competing with Nintendo, which don't ask me how Devil May Cry or Silent Hill would be competing with Mario or Zelda, but tell that to the third party developers who'd rather support consoles like the 360 and PS3 whose first party games are competing directly with them and kicking their asses.

- Third Party Developers spent all last generation telling Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft how they wanted HD gaming for this generation as the next step forward and now that they have it they're going broke, but still don't care for the fact that Nintendo refused to play ball.

@Onimusha12 That would be likely if the DS doesn't get support on a Massive scale from 3rd parties.

 The Ds isn't that significant a factor for most third parties though, it's kind of a side endeavor, not their bread and butter and none of them have pushed any massive projects for it outside of a Square-Enix's Dragon Quest 9. Most Third Party Developers still put their heavy hitters on the PSP. There are practically no third party system sellers for the DS because few take it so seriously.

Really? I just made a list of good games on the DS, I'm not finished, but about 3/4ths of them are from 3rd parties. Once I'm finished I'm sure there will be more first party games, but most of them are 3rd party games. I probably will add about twice the amount I have now, and right now there are about 60 games on the list of released and unreleased games. about 45(i think) are from 3rd parties. I don't know what you mean by the DS' support being average, but compared to that of most handhelds it is excellent. Especially if you look at the first 2 years of the DS, and all of the support it got then. If the Wii had support at about half the level that the ds does I would be happy. It has main series like Castlevania, Contra, Tales of, Dragon QUest, etc on it. Also it has a large amount of great games from smaller developers. The DS is my favorite console/handheld of all time Just because of the balance between 3rd party and 1st party support. So I don't see where it the support is moderate. Especially compared to the that of the consoles and handhelds this generation. It gets almost all of the BIG Japanese support, and some western support. It is a Handheld that has better support than most consoles did in their lifetime. That is an excellent acheivement and I see the Wii following and maybe even exceeding the DS' path. Also the main point of my post was targeted at this part of yours Third Party Developers are timid and flighty, much like your typical consumer, they form their opinion about a console in the first couple months of its life.    The ds proves this isn't true because most deveopers thought the DS, much like the Wii, as a gimmick. Now look at how they see it.

Please give me examples of THIS psp support.  I would love to see these heavy hitters that are coming to the PSP.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=36367 I think  you should take a look at that thread.

Edit: Also I think you are expecting too much from a Handheld.

You're the one who brought the DS up as a prime indicator for the Wii. Don't tell me I'm expecting too much of it in this comparison, lol.

No I brought it up as a counter argument to this. Third Party Developers are timid and flighty, much like your typical consumer, they form their opinion about a console in the first couple months of its life.  While that may be true, the opinion is open for change just like most of them changed on the DS. Also the opinion doesn't really mean much if you have shareholders that will sue you if you don't find the most profitable solution. Oh and third parties aren't one entity, and many people in the company could have different opinions.

I'm going to have to seriously take issues with both of your hypotheses. Many companies are being kept afloat primarily because of the DS, and even some of the biggest players in the industry are making record profits because of that system (see Ubisoft and Activision's financial statements for proof). No, I'm actually going to say that the DS IS the bread and butter of many, many publishers. Heck, some publishers (most notably Marvelous and Hudson) have credited the DS with saving their bottom lines.

Granted, the projects are rarely massive from a budgetary standpoint, but that's primarily because the DS doesn't need high budgets to give you a massive game. In contrast to the other systems, the DS is a breeze to develop for, and its low-end graphics means the art doesn't cost much (and art is the primary reason for the skyrocketing budgets we're experiencing: HD games need 10 artists for every programmer, on average). Shoot, most DS games cost under a million dollars to develop (which is why it's many companies' bread and butter in the first place...)

As to your PSP comment, again I must fervently disagree. Capcom's raking it in on that system, but that's about it. Even Sony is moving away from it, as even Ubisoft has publically pointed out.

Finally, I don't mean this as an attack, and I apologize if it comes out this way, but your last sentence really needs more work. The DS is a beast: I can't think of any company that does NOT take it seriously anymore. Mind you, that statement was correct in 2004-5, but it's no longer the case. Which is precisely why sc94597 rightfully brought it up...