I'm going to ask this of you, since Kwaad seems to have hit the hay: 

Do you have some evidence to support your claim that Wii attach ratios are poor (or "okay")? Again, the only region with lifetime software totals is Japan, and for that region, the Wii's attach rate is quite good, and noticeably better than the PS3's. 

Also, it's quite unfair to simply ignore Wii Sports and Wii Play. We've gone over this before. Put simply: if people did not have Wii Sports/Play, then logically, they'd often buy something else to go with their Wii instead. Simply making those figures vanish into thin air is quite unfair. Perhaps including 50 percent of their value would be justified? It's not easy to pinpoint what's correct, but including none of it is obviously invalid. 

 I'd agree with that. As someone I know who has a Wii (and was the first and only one I've played on lol :P) only has those games. So if they were not pack-ins it's likely they would have sold anyway, because people want those kinda games. Although I was kinda dissapointed with the tennis because I've played on Dreamcast tennis games that look better than that, although I guess it's the control scheme that makes it good

In the US, I don't consider Wii Sports a valid argument at all. It's bundled. Wii Play, I'm rather iffy on, because when you buy Wii Play, your not actually buying software. Your buying a bundle pack with basically a free (or near free) game with a Wiimote.

Japan? Totally different story. Wii Sports costs money, and is doing very very well. Had Wii Sports not of packed in the US, I would gladly consider it a normal, purchasable game, despite the lower pricetag, but it gives Wii software sales a brutal, unnatural advantage versus PS3 and X360 software (I feel), in the US. The top 2 selling games for the Wii in the US are either free, or actually counted as hardware since you pay $40 USD for a $30 controller and a $10 game. Is that fair? That'd be like counting Hexic HD as a normal software sale. Im not saying don't count it, but when we're discussing US software sales, it needs left out.

Attach rates for US/Japan:

In Japan, the attach rate for the Wii is 2.32 software units per Wii - Okay, but not quite what I think would be considered dominant. Again, this is due to budget titles in Wii Sports/Play moving about 45% of the software in Japan.

PS attach ratios are indeed abysmal - 1.5 units per PS3. Quite a bit worse than the Wii, because atleast there was atleast a decent bit of revenue for Wii Sports (around 4,000 yen x 1.8m units) and Wii Play (4,000 yen for controller + game x 1.2m units). But the tier ratios have improved much quicker for the PS3.

By the end of December, the Wii had an attach ratio of 2.09, and the PS3, a ratio of 0.99. Since then, the Wii's attach ratio has increased 10%, whereas the PS3 has increased 50%.

For comparison, the Xbox 360 had an attach ratio of 1.68, and by July of last year, had a ratio of 2.57 - an increase of 45%.

And again, the PS2, atleast as far as this website is considered (I think the sales are actually quite low, as the LTD attach ratio VGC has for PS2 is 6.0, when it was actually 10.0); was 1.33 by its first month, and was 1.69 by a similar period, but was without a holiday (like the Wii, X360, and PS3 had @ start). But again, I think the VGC numbers are most likely off by 50%.

If the Wii is to be dominant in Japan, the ratios need to improve faster than what they have. Although the tier ratios are "bad" (considering the lack of sales of actual fullprice titles), I'm not trying to be negative about it. The Wii attach ratios are certainly going to improve since DQS seems to be doing real well, and is full price. Again, I just think if the Wii wants to mimic PS2-type sales, it needs a strong tier ratio of atleast 3.5 or 4.0 by December in Japan.


Likewise, in the US, I have the data for the yearly, and attach ratios LTD, because I saved them all to my HDD before NPD closed the data down. The Wii has around a 4.3 attach ratio including 1.0 from Wii Sports, and about 0.3~0.4 from Wii play. The ratio is FAR better in the US, which it seems to have a decent ratio, but again, when compared to the PS3 and X360, it's not too great. The PS3 started out at 1.0 by the end of December, and is now at 3.0. The X360 started it's life out at 3.9, similar to the Wii w/ Sports & Play, but in the same timeframe, was at 5.0, and is now near 6.0 LTD. Whereas the Wii started out with 3.9, and has only increased to 4.3. So basically, the only thing that increased the actual attach ratio was Wii Play outside of normal full-price titles.

So basically, my synopsis is that the Wii attach ratios are not very good in either country, not entirely because of the actual ratio, but lack of increase despite games coming out. The US ratio is acceptable, but hasn't really increased in 9 months. Thats a huge problem. What happens when December comes around? Will consumers stay @ 4.0, and only buy a few games, while the PS3 attach ratio keeps increasing, and hits 4.5 or higher for actual full-priced games, and the X360 hits 6.5, or even 7.0 at the end of this year? With scenarios like that, it makes me question the ability for the Wii to dominate this generation - even if hardware does gangbusters, 3rd parties will realize consumers don't want the software like the fanbase of the PS3/X360.

This is nothing against Nintendo, but it's audience certainly isn't interested in much. Even for comparison, the NDS ratios are much better, as it enjoys a 5.0 tier ratio, and that is very strong for a handheld. So even despite the "casual" audience of the DS, and strong female demographic, the sales have still be awesome.

Stop right there! This is very silly, MrStickball. I know several people who bought Wiis recently and just own Wii Sports and Play! If those games didn't exist, obviously they'd buy something else (or not buy a Wii at all, which would also increase the system's attach ratio in this hypothetical world). You absolutely cannot discount it entirely. You say including it gives (in your opinion) a "brutally unfair" advantage to the Wii's attach rate: I say not including it does the same in the opposite direction. I don't think including every sale is warranted, but not including any of them also isn't fair. Perhaps going by the Japanese attach rate is justified -- it's difficult to decide.

Until we decide how to calculate that, all of your other calculations can stay by the wayside.

Edit: At least for the American side of things.

The Japanese are another story. As noted by Famitsu -- and as can easily be verified by simply doing some math -- the Wii actually has an extremely high attach rate in Japan, given its install base and age.

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=16697

The relevant text: Despite its penetration pace being slower than that of the PS2 (3,267,000 units sold as of its 30th week mark) or the GBA (3,306,000 units sold as of its 30th week mark) the Wii's total software sales have been far in excess of these other systems' in terms of volume –thanks to its outstanding software-hardware tie ratio.

This is difficult to calculate given relatively weak data pools, but the Wii's attach rate can easily be compared to the current day competitors at their current paces. As noted, the PS3's attach rate is 35 percent lower than the Wii's in Japan. If the Wii's attach rate is just okay in Japan, what's your assessment of the PS3? You can also calculate the 360's attach rate at this point in its lifetime (We are 33 weeks in to the Wii's lifespan in Japan. 360 had been released in Japan for 33 weeks during the week of May 6th, 2006). The attach rate of the 360 at that time in its life was 2.52: approximately 8 percent better than the Wii's rate, which is notable but not drastic, especially considering the sale rates of the systems themselves. 

So, again, the American market we can't agree on until we can solve the Wii Sports/Play conundrum, and the Japanese market is, as far as I can tell, very healthy for the Wii.

If you have the data to back that up, that seems like a rather large problem. I do think that the audience that the Wii is aimed at is going to have a detrimental effect on software sales. I mean who is really going to buy Wii Sports 2? I mean the extremely casual gamers who are buying the Wii, aren't going to buy loads of versions of cooking mama etc. I just can't imagine many casual people picking up the latest Resident Evil or Metroid. That's not to say they won't sell, just won't sell well in comparison to the user base.

That's my 2 cents anyway. 

But again, in terms of software revenue, which one is better, which shows what the consumer is buying:

1 million games a month at $60 USD or
750,000 games a month at $50 USD + 500,000 a month at an average of $20 USD.


Again, look at Japan, where Sports isn't bundled: The attach ratios are about half of that as they are in the US. This obviously shows people aren't adopting 3rd party, or other 1st party software. It's fine if you know people that have a Wii just for 1 or 2 games, but that really doesn't help the Wii out, outside of the hardware sale, does it? Videogame creators don't care about people that buy a Wii for a free, or near free game, because the games THEY have to make cost money, and if the consumer isn't willing to PAY for that game, they won't put the software out, will they?

A great example: Big Brain Academy. It's totally inline with the casual selling Wii Sports and Wii Play, but it's at #34 overall, and has sold under 90k units LTD, and is dropping badly! Why is that? Everyone here has said price. Nintendo hasn't been able to sell a game like that in the US very easily at such a high price, which leads the the strong assumption of mine that the only reason some things are selling (Wii Play) is merely because it's cheap, and everyone wants a real cheap game. So again, it leads to the arguement that the tier ratios for the Wii are somewhat deceptive. Again, bolstered by the fact that original 3rd party and 1st party full-price titles have not done very well compared to other historically dominant systems, and even the Wii's competition. This is huge, because it could be part of the reason that few 3rd parties have announced major IP franchises to goto the Wii - the sales just aren't there!

Likewise, we can take NGS versus RE4. RE4 has done very well, selling just around 200,000 units in US + Japan. NGS has sold around half of that (in a few week's less time). But again, extrapolating data puts NGS at a more favorable outcome: RE4 is $30USD, and NGS is $60USD, and similar prices in Japan. The PS3 also has half the LTD sales of Wii hardware in both countries.

So again, to a 3rd party, what is more enticing there with those kinds of sales? I'm just merely trying to remove myself from the picture and think like a businessman, and considering revenue and consumer trends before just the "Wii: 400k software sales this week" number.

Does the "w"ii have 10 good games, i cant even count ONE thats not a port from a previous gen console.

"P"sp has no 10 games that are good, you think thats not direct invitation to a flame war.

It's not that these friends of mine only have 1 or 2 games (they've only owned the system for a few weeks, after all), it's that those specific games are Wii Sports and Wii Play. According to your method, their attach rate is literally 0, which is silly, especially when I can go over to their houses and play on their Wii with them, which would be impossible if they hadn't bought any games. It completely warps the attach ratio to simply ignore  Sports/Play.

Also, your evaluation of software revenue is jilted. For both the 360 and PS3, development costs are much higher, and those aren't factored in to your equation: for the PS3 in particular, Blue Ray discs actually do cost considerably more than a DVD9, so that needs to be factored in too. Generally though, I think we should simply leave this portion of the calculations out of it -- not because it isn't relevant, but because there is so much to calculate already that including this is simply too complex, especially given that we can't even agree on the attach rates of the consoles in the first place. 

And I still would be curious to know how you reached the conclusion that the Wii's attach rate in Japan is just "okay." At this point in its lifespan, it's well ahead of the PS3 (35 percent higher) and at approximately the same place as the 360 (the 360 is 8 percent higher, but systems that sell more slowly tend to have higher attach rates per system, and the 360 is selling much more slowly there).  If the Wii's attach rate is okay... what's the PS3's attach rate like? Terrible? Abyssmal? 

The "no 3rd parties have announced major franchises" is a straw man: the reason why no major third party franchise titles have been announced for the Wii is because they were already in development when the system began to explode. Honest question -- which major third party franchise should be on the Wii? Let me list the ones I can even think of:

GTA
Devil May Cry
Resident Evil
Metal Gear
Dragon Quest
Final Fantasy
Tekken
Medal of Honor
Kingdom Hearts
Need for Speed
Madden

Am I missing any 3rd party franchises you would call "major"? I can't think of any. Of these, the three with quick development cycles (Madden, Need for Speed and Medal of Honor) have seen iterations on the Wii, and both Madden and Medal of Honor are being custom-tailored for the Wii now, as was announced at E3. Of the others, all but Dragon Quest were obviously in development for the PS3/360 before the Wii was launched, let alone before it became a phenomenon! The real question is -- of the titles that have begun development in the last 6 months, which system has seen the most activity? The answer is the Wii, especially when one considers exclusives (almost all 360 games have also been announced for the PS3, which effectively means the PS3 and 360 combined have to compete against the Wii alone). This can be seen rather easily here:

http://www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=7064

In the last 3 months, the Wii has seen more net exclusive titles announced (13) than the 360 and PS3 combined (11), and I expect that figure to continue to accelerate as the system pushes past the 360 and further past the PS3.

Lastly, your RE4 comparison is especially unfair, given that RE4 is on its fifth version in the last 3 years, the second on a Nintendo console, while Ninja Gaiden Sigma is only on its second, and the first on a Playstation. Not a reasonable comparison at all, I'm afraid.