NPD: Wii Third-Party Games Really Do Sell

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.

"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.

source: http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/npd-wii-thirdparty-games-really-do-sell/

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Yeah, i know i just posted this in another thread but i feel like it deserves it's own thread.

ha i love the huge jump after a year. Its like the devs were like "oh shit, the Wii is a success, lets throw a bunch of shit at them quick"

wonder how it will look in like another year when all the good games from 3rd parties are coming out

Nice.
Go Wii!

No offense Kitler, but this has been posted more times than necessary on this site.

Not your fault though, it's not labeled perfectly like yours.

holy shit!!!!! The system with the highest userbase sells the most games!!!!!!

I would have never guessed it!!!!!!!

was that one figure posted before?

wii 3rd party sales in US this year - 13.4 million
360 - 16.5 million

when you consider 360 got GTA4 it's pretty even. There's many other ways you can look at it too, i mean Wii hasn't really got any big 3rd party games this year (lets not confuse good games with blockbuster games). I bet games from last year account for more than half of the wii 3rd party sales this year.

This is NPD data, in other words US only. 

The 360 had the highest userbase on this chart up until the most recent month (it might be 2 now). You'll have to find a different way to marginalize it, this one doesn't work.

So the translation is: people have nothing to complain about for the Wii except for lack of HD?

You can also complain about HD output and your arms getting tired while playing if you want, but yeah the 3rd party argument is dying a slow death.

Hah, I meant HD as in HD output, but not Hard drive, but yeah I guess there's that too, huh? That can at least be fixed (the storage issue) and hopefully soon.