Stop pretending Nintendo is that dumb. They still need to hype those.

@Lord: Most of the games they had just released weren't hyped at all. Hell even some WiiWare games like the ART Style ones weren't even officially announced, they just popped in the Wii Shop.
Games like Disaster, Fatal Frame, Captain Rainbow, Mario Super Sluggers were all released without any info whatsoever. That's why we're seeing low sales for them.
Wii Music isn't doing that good either, but that's a matter of the game itself, because that is the most hyped game I've seen in my entire life. Devoting 70% of both E3 and the October conferences to it was a bit ridiculous and that amount of hype doesnt correlate with the actual sales.

I hope that the next conference they attend to, things should be more balanced and they show off all their upcoming games, not just 1.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

There is no such thing as "a third party game published by Nintendo." Nintendo is a first party. They are only capable of publishing first party games. The ONLY REASON the term "second party" exists is as a slang term to describe games that are developed by a third party, and published by a first party. That is the definition of a second party game, and obviously S&P2 and Punch Out!! qualify.

Furthermore, of course Nintendo is involved in every game they outsource. It isn't like any developer can just walk up to Nintendo, and Nintendo will give them an IP and publish their game. Nintendo's software directors including Miyamoto probably have a lot of oversight and input.

You're also being a little dishonest about how many of Nintendo's teams are working on mystery projects. First of all, much of EAD reorganizes constantly depending on what's in development. The teams aren't set in stone, other than the seperate Tokyo team of course. Furthermore, even if they aren't "official," we know that Hal is working on Kirby, the Zelda team is working on Zelda, the Mario is working on a "core" game, Game Freak always work on Pokemon, Skip has been doing the Art Style games (GBA ports, oh noes!) for WiiWare, there's the newly announced WarioWare products, and I'd guess some of the half-dozen other games Nintendo announced at their TGS-concurrent conference are internal.

That isn't proof Nintendo will wait until the last minute to announce games. You can't counter a point with something off to the side.

@Erik Aston: Not really, check my thread http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=44028&page=1

Nintendo is not making any of the games besides Wii Sports Resort. They are all outsourced to third party teams.

Also, the difference between a second and third party dev is that a second party developer was once a third party dev, but has been bought or has an exclusive deal with a console maker, so it's basically a 1st party team.

Third parties can make games and Nintendo can choose to publish them if they like. Nintendo may also hire a 3rd party team to make a game, though that very same team could be making projects for another console.

For example, Namco Bandai will never qualify as a second party dev, like you imply. They made Mario Super Sluggers, but only upon Nintendo's request. Alpha Dream or example makes only Wii or DS games, they will never be able to produce games for another platform that's not Nintendo, unless their contract is broken or Nintendo wants to get rid of them. Like it happened with RARE.

i thought iwata said sometime this past year that they were gonna start waiting till a few months before release to announce their games?

Whether there is a contract for a single game, a series, or for every game the developer makes doesn't matter. Every contract is different, and the term "second party" does not try to seperate them.

It is a slang term that refers to ANY game developed by a third party, but published by a first party.

A company which has been wholly or majoritally bought by a first party company, is now part of that company, and so is first party.

You would be better off not trying to classify the developers as "second party," but only the games. If you want to apply it to developers, there is no problem at all in saying that Namco acted as a second party in the development of Mario Sluggers.

For example, Skip Ltd. published LOL by themselves. Everything else they've made, Nintendo published. Technically, they're in the same boat as Namco Bandai in everything but percentages of games published by Nintendo. So where is the line between second and third in your book?

Just look at that Namco example. Does it help at all to classify a Mario game as third party? That's absurd. The important point, in this discussion, is that it is a game that Nintendo outsourced, and so didn't eat up their internal resources.

And just think about it. What games could there be dispute about their classification, such that a slang catchall would arise? First party deved and first party pubed? No dispute. Third party deved and third party pubed? No dispute. Third party deved and first party pubed? Potential dispute with every single game in the category. Your definition would have us digging into contract law and setting arbitrary borderlines, rendering the term useles.... Which it is anyways because no one uses it properly.