Most users know that most Wii games are all about "legs" and what have you, but not often do we see the 3rd party games have big debuts.

The last big one could arguably be Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Although recent, it is only a small taste of what the Wii can do, and should be able to do more often. It will be a while before any potentially big releases come up, so we will have to wait until mid-November, but maybe then we could get a big debut that Wii owners not looking at Nintendo's first party get to experience.

Guitar Hero: World Tour should have a pretty big debut. Also so should The Conduit and Red Steel 2 whenever it releases.

Most of it just has to do with getting the core base on the Nintendo platform to agree with the same purchase haha. I mean they do it of course with Nintendo games which is why Brawl, TP, SMG, and MK Wii all have huge openers but on 3rd party games, especially multiplat, it seems to be a lot harder to get them to agree.

Most of the time they own another console and get that or they see through them getting the weak end of the deal with a game. Considering there haven't been too many big 3rd party exclusives on the Wii that applies to that huge core its been hard to tell how they would do with something like that. But The Conduit should be a test for that along with various other big 3rd party exclusive releasing in 2009. As for the rest of the year we are looking at Sonic Unleashed, 007 Game, GH: WT, COD5, and Tales of Symphonia 2 possibly having those big debuts.

GH:WT and Call of Duty: World at War or the only two 3rd party titles that i think will have "big" opening weeks this year. Maybe 300-400k week one. That is big for Wii 3rd parties, but not when compared to their sales on PS3 or 360.

GHIII had a big debut if I remember correctly.

The Conduit and No More Heroes (i know its a while away) will have pretty big debuts. Like Zucas said, i think Red Steel 2 will be huge (even if it isnt very good).

however i dont think CoD5 will sell all that great its first week. Thats just me.

Well, only big, hyped and popular games can achieve to have a huge opening. So far only Nintendo 1st party games were able to do so, since the 3rd party offerings didn't meet the requirements.

The Conduit should be rather big, same for Rock Band 2, GH:WT, CoD5.
Then games like Quantum of Solace, Star Wars: Clone Wars, PES09, MadWorld, etc. should all be reasonable, but not huge. Until a very big franchise arrives on the Wii, there's no point in arguing since opening weeks won't be big.

We seem to all be in agreement on what has the possibility. But one we all left out was Monster Hunter 3. Probably because most of us don't live in Japan, but that game may have one of the biggest opening weeks out of all the Wii 3rd party games. We are talking a million first week being the most likely scenario.

But we are American/European so we think the ones that are bigger here. But yea this year COD5, GH: WT, and TOS2 are the ones that could amass that along with maybe Sonic Unleashed and Quantum of Solace given they are big brand games.

Going into 2009 The Conduit has gotten so much hype and attention already that its hard to think this won't open big. I think this will be that game where the core just agrees on a similar purchase. Also a lot of other in 09 that have this chance such as Madworld and Red Steel 2 among others but we'll wait more til beginning of 09 to start judging hype on those.

 For some strange reason, I like the words No More Heroes and The Conduit in the same sentence.

Anyways, seeing as how worldwide week 1 sales for NMH were 72k, I think this time around it will be 120k.

Any bets? (Even besides NMH?)

I think we can say that No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle will have a lot better shot at stronger sales.  I think the first one provided somewhat of a cult hit that got the brand mainstream especially within the core of the Nintendo base.  It's ashame that it'll take so long to release as if it were to release in late 09 it could open with sales higher than the original did in its lifetime. 

But considering that's not the case and possibly some lost brand appeal til early 2010 and know holiday help, we are looking at a possibility of 200k-250k opening week if I were to take guesses now.  Majority being American where it opens to about 150k.  Thus 50k more in E/O and another varying number for Japan.  And if that were to case it could go on to sell around 600k-700k wiht about a million shipped considering the first one sold about 400k and shipped around 600k. 

As for the Conduit this game is just getting everything it needs.  It is Wii's "Gears of War" right now when it comes to defining the console and being the game everyone is looking at.  I'm glad Nintendo didn't release anything massive later this year and into early 09 because this game may have blocked some of that hype.  Right now as long as this title gets good advertising in the week it releases and a week before and after this title could open up with a million.  700k in America and 300k in Europe.  This is what its looking at about.  And probably end the year at about 2 million to 2.5 million.  Have no ideas about legs for this title on a Ninty console but it could catch on with the mainstream as do many shooters such as Resistance, Halo, and Gears of War.

And to compare Monster Hunter 3 will most likely open 50k-100k tops in E/O and America combined unless this is really pushed here.  But I'm thinking somehwere around 1 million to 1.5 million opening week in Japan.  I mean this game was so huge at TGS 08 that there isn't much stopping this from opening 1 million first week there.  and PSP has made this is into one of the largest franchises in Japan only behind DQ, FF, and Pokemon of course. 

Now of course for all 3 I'm more or less giving the highest tolerance of possibilities and not giving the range for the low but that's ok right haha.

NMH is coming in 09 by the way.