Ahh... can't you have picked a bigger pic? Like, clicking on that magnifying glass on the top right wherever you found it?

Anyway, does it include Wii Play? That alone is bigger than the PS3's total first party (ouch), or Microsoft's biggest game, Halo. Still, even without Wii Play Ninty beats them both combined.

@Manuelf: Microsoft has very few first party games of their own. As for Sony, well, they're a bit weak in the US, and besides GT their first party games don't sell all that much. It looks like they've been trying to change that this gen.

A meme has to die down before it can be revived...

Actually, I find myself surprised to say that I disagree with this statement. If you're referring to the third-party thing as a proportional thing (i.e. 1st party Nintendo games sell disproportionately more than 1st party Sony/Microsoft ones) then a simple glance at the data quickly refutes it.

If, however, you're referring to the level of sales for third-party games in general as being more spread out than HD games, I actually disagree quite fervently. I'll admit I haven't completely fleshed out this idea yet, but I'm starting to think that the distribution of third-party Wii game sales has less to do with "effort" than it does with "targeting."

By this, I mean that many more HD games know that they have a fairly consolidated audience. The gaming tastes of the 13-25 male is quite well-known (trained?) by now, and that group tends to act in easily recognized blocs that often act in concert. Thus, publishers know that there is currently a very large group of HD gamers who are fans of shooters, and that they can reasonably tailor their game to appeal to this crowd in the hope that they get more buzz than their competitors (the fact that the majority fail the last part is a topic for another day).

The same can be said of groups like JRPG fans, sports sim fans, etc.: publishers have a fairly good idea of how large the group is, and how to appeal to this group to get as much of their money as possible. And since these blocs tend to congregate via print and online media, and consequently generally act in herds, those gamers tend to flock towards the two or three games that their fellow afficianados are raving about this quarter. This means that while most of the games released in that genre will fail, a handful will rise to enough success that attention is drawn towards them, giving the illusion of health.

By contrast, I'm starting to think that Wii owners are nowhere near as monolithic as their HD counterparts. While there are quite a few of us who also keep up on gaming news and opinion via magazines and the internet, I would argue that we're proportionally smaller than our HD counterparts. Instead, a far higher amount of Wii gamers are people who aren't as focused on gaming as their hobby. This may explain why internet forums in general do not contain a representative sample of gamers; for instance, the folks who "non-games" are aimed at don't come around these parts (which is why their tastes are pointlessly mocked and ridiculed), but they form a large and growing portion of the gaming population.

The consequences of this is that the Wii audience is much more diverse in its tastes. We tend to cluster less, and spread out the buying power through more genres and individual games. This results in the curious phenomenom we've been seeing: Wii games, third-party in particular, are much less likely to go multi-platinum than their HD counterparts, but by the same token they're much less likely to flop either. The diverse, non-fanatic userbase also doesn't rush to buy the game in its first week, but purchases new stuff on its own sweet time.

This also explains why, when the top 10/20/30 lists are released by the NPD et. al., third-party Wii games are less likely to ever show up, but when the year-end results appear the uninformed are stunned to see that third-parties on the Wii sold more than first-and-third parties on the PS3/360.

To summarize: the Wii audience does not vote or act in large clumps, but goes for disperse games and genres. They are much less likely to congregate around single titles (with some very notable exceptions...), and because of this diversity I'm skeptical that a sudden increase in effort by third-parties will lead to a proportionate increase in their sales: they might entice tens of thousands more people in, but too many Wii owners simply won't be interested in that genre and will not have the internet to hype them about a product they're not naturally interested in.

I originally wrote a few more paragraphs about how I would approach the Wii as a third-party, but I not only realized that I was going off-topic but that I was rambling as well. Sleep deprivation does that to you. To be honest, I'm a bit scared to go back and read what I just wrote. Let me know if it makes any sense; I'll look at it again in the morning, when the hallucinations have ended (or at least are now artificially induced), and I'm guessing we'll all just have a good laugh and forget I ever wrote the damn thing.

@noname2200: good point. I bet that's one of the up/downs of a broad audience.

But we shouldn't forget that 3d parties tend to make the wii versions of their games inferior to the other ones because they don't treat the wii seriously (alone in the dark, dead rising come to mind).

Warning! Absurdly long post ahead! Short version follows. :

You're definitely right there. And third-party efforts are decidedly sub-par at the moment. But with the right strategy, third-parties can levy the Wii to good short-term and great long-term profits. Unfortunately, they probably won't plan that far ahead. In fact, for many third-parties it may be so late in the game that they're better served by sticking to what they're doing now, and praying they don't go bankrupt in the next few years.

Short version is probably all you need to read. Long version rambles a lot, and is more of an ego-trip for me than it is a useful or insightful post. If I was you, the reader, I'd skip it. Having given fair warning...longer version follows:

Too true, and I'm pretty sure I phrased my earlier post too broadly. To refine what I said earlier, the "garbage in, garbage out" maxim still applies to the Wii (hear that, Ubisoft?). And making a better product will likely build up your fanbase over time, which is a huge long-term benefit.

But I don't think that if a third-party suddenly re-tooled itself to make traditional titles for the Wii with the same amount of time and effort as they do with HD consoles, it would automatically and immediately follow that they will see the same level of success that they do on the HD consoles.

So far, the demographic that traditional games appeal to (13-25 males) don't seem to be on the Wii in as large a number as they are on the HD consoles. While the number of such on the Wii is not insignificant (see, e.g., Brawl's sales), and while I'm positive that they too will gravitate towards the system in increasing numbers as time goes on (a la the DS) there are not enough on the system right now to give traditional third-party Wii titles massive sales. I expect The Conduit and Mad World to be quite profitable, for instance, but unlike others I don't think they'll go platinum.

But what they WILL do is attract more people in that demographic to the system, so that the next titles will do better (assuming the quality is still there). And when Nintendo gets around to going for traditional gamers with gusto (2010, perhaps?) I expect such titles to really start taking off.

In short, while the base for traditional games is solid on the Wii at the moment, first-and-third parties would be best served by taking pains to slowly grow it, starting with mid-budget titles that take advantage of the Wii's revolutionary controls and slowly expanding their teams and budgets over time. This will ensure they get the steady profits they need to grow, and that they are large and experienced enough at the end of the process to start cranking out proper AAA Wii games.

Alternatively, they could take a page from Nintendo's book, and start focusing on making "bridge" games, which would be the best outcome for us gamers in the long run. But that's all but certain to NOT happen: such a strategy takes an organization-wide focus and concentration to pull off properly, and Nintendo's the only one with enough interest in doing so on its systems to make it worth revamping their entire organization. More to the point, it took five years for Nintendo to reach this stage of preparation; if any third-party tried to mimic them now they'd be wasting billions in trying to reach a ship that will have already sailed.

But your post makes a great point about how third-parties will not go about achieving these modest short-term and massive long-term profits. The current focus that companies like Activision have of making a Wii version of their HD games will never lead to the result outlined above. Again, those games are meant to appeal to traditional gamers, and they're often inferior to their HD counterparts because they lack the latters' graphical, online, and processing prowess, while not taking sufficient advantage of the Wii's unique strengths. Presented with such a choice, is it any surprise that most traditional gamers pick the HD version over the Wii one? And this will not lead to long-term growth. It is not, however, completely useless: by offering Wii-only owners a decent chance to play a fascimile of an HD game on their Wii, these ports can act as a sort of plug that prevents more traditionally-oriented gamers from abandoning the Wii altogether in the short term.

Of course, that grand vision I have of long-term success is probably not going to happen without Nintendo forcing the matter. As you said, too many third parties don't take the system seriously. While Japan is increasingly shifting to the Wii, and small and mid-sized Western developers are going to it from sheer necessity, it is feasible that the larger Western publishers will always treat the Wii as the red-headed stepchild.

But I can't blame them.

Companies like Activision are structured around the mantra that bigger is better, flashy is great, and competing for the same existing customers is a fine long-term strategy. Their management thinks like this, their developers think like this, and their resources and training are devoted to this. They simply can not turn around and walk away from that at this point in the game. They've grown accustomed to having the crutch of processing and graphical horsepower; take those away, and they're crippled. It would be like asking a professional basketball player to compete in the National Hockey League; the skillsets involved are completely different, and the result would likely not be pretty. Mind you, none of this should be surprising. The Wii was deliberately meant to disrupt the traditional values of the gaming industry. We can hardly be surprised that the disrupted would be lost if they tried to play this whole new ballgame!

If I was the head of Activision, or Midway, or one of those companies that's having trouble understanding the Wii, I would actually try to ride out the storm with my current teams, rather than shifting them to making big Wii projects. Doing the latter would be like trying to cut wood with a hammer. I'm convinced that much of EA's current problems are related to their trying to do a 180 mid-generation (see Riticello's comments about "betting on the wrong horse") and finding that it's not easy to make the Titanic pull a hairpin curve like that. Of course, any company that did survive this generation, but which doesn't bother to adapt to the next generation, is stupid enough that its inevitable closure wouldn't bother me much.

And with that, I have now completely hijacked the thread. It bears zero resemblance to the point RolStoppable wanted to make. Seriously, none of what I just wrote has anything to do with the Wii selling the most first party software. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

I'd be proud of myself, if my penchant for writing massive, pointless essays wasn't completely counter-productive for everyone involved. I shall thus exit this thread with as much dignity as I can scrape up. But first...

I'll admit, I'd have been extremely impressed at such a chart myself. Grab some crayons, Rol!

This isn't anything new. Oh well... Go first parties!
(>'.')>

noname2200 said:

So far, the demographic that traditional games appeal to (13-25 males) don't seem to be on the Wii in as large a number as they are on the HD consoles. While the number of such on the Wii is not insignificant (see, e.g., Brawl's sales), and while I'm positive that they too will gravitate towards the system in increasing numbers as time goes on (a la the DS) there are not enough on the system right now to give traditional third-party Wii titles massive sales. I expect The Conduit and Mad World to be quite profitable, for instance, but unlike others I don't think they'll go platinum.
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I have to disagree with you on this point. Third parties have not tried to reach to core gamers on the Wii. Therefore we do not know how large the core audience is on the Wii. Secondly, The PSX and PS2 both enjoyed great software and software sells because the casual and the core audience were both served by first and third party efforts. Developers and Publishers that have a diversified portfolio of casual and core games will do very well on the Wii. The success of the PSX, PS2, GBA, and the DS gives validity to that statement. Their libraries cater to both the casual and the core.

Publishers and Developers can not continue to stay the course and go casual only. To be successful they must also cater to the core. Nintendo has been very successful with their software because they have casual as well as core titles. They've made something for everyone.

[As a final note. The Sims, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, and Harvest Moon are casual games that the casual and core audience both enjoy playing. However, 3rd parties on the Wii are not trying to make those types of games. Instead they are trying to make the next Wii sports. A low budget game that makes insane profits.]---The bracketed part is more of an observational rant but it is valid.

Square Enix bring Mario Vs Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street to the West and on the Wii. Yeah I know the game is not developed but it will make an insane amount of profits. I think.

This happens every generation.

True, but I'd say this actually supports my claim. Apart from Nintendo, only a few third-parties have been creating core games for the Wii. So if there are fewer core games for the system than there are for other systems right now, and if the core audience is primarily motivated by core games, that implies that the core audience likely isn't there yet in as large numbers as they are on the HD consoles. I think there are enough core gamers who are Nintendo afficianados and who are open to non-traditional experiences that the Wii contains plenty of core gamers now, but there's lots of room to grow.

You're 100% right here, and it seems third-parties are finally starting to catch on. And by the end of next year, I don't think the old "Wii is only casual" meme will be around anymore (which makes it Wii Meme #32,934 to die). My posts above weren't claiming anything to the contrary: they're just arguing that because of poor third-party efforts the core gamer isn't as likely to own a Wii as an HD consoles at the moment. The larger number of core Wii games coming out next year tells me that situation will rectify itself soon, though.

*sigh* I thought it was going to be a joke thread.