@dib8rman: Sony's going to show the "Playstation family" 3rd party sales and imply them as PS3 sales. As usual.

I just realized Nintendo intends to have sold 50 million Wii's by April 09.

thats 20 million more Wiis in 81/2 months... so thats more than 2 million a month average or 1.4 million and a major christmas and golden week.

Nintendo always makes estimates so conservative that they beat them consistently.  Imagine them as the opposite of Microsoft -- remember when MS said they'd sell 3 million 360s in 90 days and then barely managed half of that?  And then remember when they said they'd sell 10 million by the time the PS3 launched and ended up with less than 7 million?

Those were embarrassing estimates because Microsoft didn't even come close.

When Nintendo says they'll have 50 million shipped by April, that means there is little question that they'll have that many.  Possibly many more.

Nintendo wasn't lying - the Wii pie is much bigger than the PS3/360 pie.

Third parties only get 4 slices of the Wii pizza but its 30 inches vs. 7 slices of the PS3 & 360 pizzas at 12 inches each.

Don't believe me? Well here is what NPD said on the matter -

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http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/npd-wii-thirdparty-games-really-do-sell/?biz=1

We recently posted a story discussing the state of third-party software sales on Wii, which included a chart from Nintendo that inconveniently also lumped in first-party sales. Well, now we've obtained the proper third-party only sales chart (see below), which does bear out what Nintendo of America has been telling us all along: games from third parties are selling on the Wii.

In fact, when GameDaily BIZ contacted The NPD Group for more data, we discovered that for the first 20 months on the market for each console the Wii comparatively sold several million more units of third-party software in the U.S. than either the Xbox 360 or PS3. More specifically, the Wii sold 33 million units of third-party software in its first 20 months, while the Xbox 360 sold 29 million units and the PS3 sold 20 million units.

Click through for the full-size chart

"I actually think that given the number of comments made from industry executives at E3 (or thereabouts) about how they didn't put enough resources against development of Wii games that the industry has realized that the old adage of 'only first-party games sell on Nintendo systems' is absolutely incorrect. I think you're right that the data will cause a few eyebrows to lift," NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier commented.

So where does the perception that third-party games don't sell on Wii come from? Most likely it stems from the respective sales ratios for the three consoles. While third-party software sales comprise well over 80 percent of total game sales on both the Xbox 360 and PS3, on the Wii that number dips all the way down to 56 percent. On the whole, however, because total Wii software sales are so high, even 50-something percent of a huge chunk yields a larger total for third-party sales. But there's still no doubt that Nintendo's incredible first-party success leaves a smaller part of the Wii software market for third parties to fight over. The key, however, as Nintendo has said, is to expand that market so all can benefit. So far, so good.

UPDATE: Having read our story, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter decided to give us his take in an email: "Year-to-date (which I think is more relevant than lifetime), third parties have sold 13.4 million units of software for the Wii and 16.5 million units for the 360. That's NPD, and U.S. only. My guess is that the numbers are much closer to the same if we include Europe, and much higher for Wii if we go worldwide."

No matter how you slice it though, considering that the Xbox 360 had a year's head start on the other platforms, the Wii's third-party sales are quite good.

Nintendo's graph wasn't spin.  It very clearly said exactly what it was: a comparison of the first 19 months of each system.

Microsoft's IS spin however, because it is saying that Nintendo is lying, and the evidence they supply has nothing to do with it.  Microsoft isn't discussing the first 19 months.  They're using their yearlong headstart and calling Nintendo liars.  Nintendo didn't lie.

And as usual, they're ignoring Japan.

Hey smart analysis by Pachter, who'd've thought it. ;)

Align their launches eh? Yeah, that would make sense if they showed sales data per release (through 19 months) or the Wii and 360 had similar sales through their first 19 months. You want to "align" their launches but you don't want to look at any other metric?

@Sqrl:

Sorry bud, but it's funny when everyone believes the numbers when Nintendo presents them, but when Microsoft shows better data (i.e. RAW numbers), everyone is refuting it.

freebird4 - There's raw numbers for what Nintendo showed. Try reading TheSource's post a few above.

Oh really?? What's wrong with the NPD numbers that Microsoft presented? Why is the one that supports your view the most accurate?

Both parties could be lying out of their ass, but because X data shows Nintendo to be king, it's gospel.