Well, maybe third parties need to put more work in their games to actually make them look worthy enough to buy. Blaming the console that selling the most, just shows how pathetic developers can be at their worst.

I wanted to give you a new experience.

But you have a problem, I thought all decent efforts sold really well on the Wii? It might be impossible for any legitimate effort to really fail at this point.

This may be an example of the problem. They can make a game for the "gamer" croud, but not one for the "non-gamer" croud.

Ubisoft has been a mixed bag. They realized Nintendo was going places, and they supported them. However, they have yet tom realize how ot make a "non-game". They have stuggled with this concept; however, they are making much better sdrides. Red Steel and Rayman Raving Rabbids are both good attemps.

The only point that I would like to make is why would any 3rd party developer make an exclusive Wii game unless they were finacially supported by Nintendo? If I was a 3rd party developer, I would try and maximize sale by releasing on all platforms including portable devices. Thus the lead platform would be the platform that will likely sell the most games, or the platform which will showcase the game the best (graphics, sound, on-line interaction etc), and the rest will be ports.

For example EA/2K makes sports games, and every year Madden etc sells millions on the Xbox and PS3, but the trend on the Wii is interesting. Madden 07 sold ~430K, Madden 08 sold ~850K, BUT madden 09 has sold even less than Madden 07 on the Wii at ~377K. This makes no sense as the games every year gets better, but more importantly the Wii userbase has dramatically gotten larger. I understand that people will not necessarily buy the new Madden every year, but the added new userbase is so much larger than 07 but why are sales of 09 worse than 07? What does this have to do with EA and its ability to publish software for the Wii? Every year Madden sells better on the Xbox and PS3 but not on the Wii? This points to the Wii as being the problem, not the EA (publishers).

The problem is not with the Wii itself, but with the userbase of the Wii. Whilst Xbox/PS3 owners will rush out and buy Madden every year, Wii owners do not. 10% of Xbox people bought Madden 09, 1% on the Wii. This applies to many other games (like CoD:WaW, etc). GH:WT is doing OK on the Wii, but I really doubt it will do anywhere as good as GH III on the Wii. Sequals on the Xbox/PS3 tend to do as well if not better, while they do poorer on the Wii despite an explosion of the userbase. Even a game like Star Wars force unleased, why is the Wii half a million behind Xbox despite twice the userbase? If I was LucasArts I would be disappointed with the lack of support from the Wii userbase, thus, I will never make a Nintendo as a priority (and games are $10 cheaper than Xbox/PS3, so I make even less money per game sold).

I wish there was a way to filter out total software sold for each console, and remove exclusives. One would see how abysmal 3rd party games have sold on the Wii. Even in the same time period, PS2 games probably outsold Wii thus one cannnot complain that the games are 'gimped' because of harware issues. The Wii userbase does not support 3rd party developers.

^

Just a note on the lower sale cost - the $10 bump in price between generations was meant to offset the spiralling HD development costs.  It would be more productive to look at the profit figures, if they could be found.

Nintendo enables far better games than its competitors. Prettier, no; gimmicked-up with replay-killers like Achievements, no. But better in every way that petters, yes.

No one but the third parties are to blame for their own shovelware. They have all the power they need to make better games than the graphics-are-everything cash-ins that have infested the HD consoles: all the power for AI and physics, all the space for levels, and all the controls for gameplay. The power boosts from HD are good for nothing but graphics: FACT.

You seem like heavily logic challenged, let me jelp you.

If Madden 08 > Madden 07, but Madden 09 < Madden 07, obviously, that means one of two things:

- the problem is with Madden 09.

- consumers had high expectations for Madden 08 after Madden 07, and were disappointed, and a lot decided that Madden games were shit after 08 edition.

So the problem is obviously with Madden, not the Wii or its userbase, as the Wii has shown it can sell lots of Madden in the past, but decided it won't buy crappy games. See? We're back to the title of this thread.

Are you a 3rd party?

Same for SW:FU.

3rd party sales are actually better on the Wii than it was on the XB360 launch aligned, so you seem fact challenged too. Especially since the Wii does not have twice the userbase of the XB360, and that the Wii userbase is new, because it's only a 2 years old console and sells to a lot of people every month.

@xerostomia: That's the approach a lot of the 3rd parties have taken. Of course, going for every possible platform doesn't guarantee higher sales than having an exclusive title, of course, this is a game specific thing.

Ok, so, Wii games have long legs. Madden 09 is on track to pass 07 and likely will pass 08. There's one problem with new audience; if your game fails to deliver, they may not come back to the series, which is different from the core gamers. If you kick the core to the balls, it will come back to get kicked again, if it wouldn't hurt this time.
This is the reason why so much shovelware is sold, when the new audience turns away from the shovelware, the core will buy it again, if the shovelware were better this time.

As for Force Unleashed, there's a game called Lightsaber Duels, which have affected TFU sales on Wii. CW:LD seems like a lot better option for having some lightsaber action.

You can always search the sales numbers and calculate it yourself. Well, the Wii versions of multiplatform titles usually aren't "gimped", since they tend to be the PS2 versions, with tacked on new controls, so the better comparision in the cases may be PS2 versions sales.

Anyway, the third parties problem isn't Wii userbase dissing them, but the 3rd parties dissing Wii userbase. Quality 3rd party efforts usually have sold well.

Also the developement costs are less and royalties smaller on Wii, so the ten is being offset pretty well.

By the way, it's pretty odd how "the new users are dissing the 3rd parties" at the same time when "they don't know anything about games".

@ookaze, I am not going to argue with you with information/numbers that I do not know. With regards to Madden, I personnally have not played any of the Wii Madden games, but on the Xbox 360, 2009 is better than 2008, which in turn is better on 2007 ( I have all of them including 2006). This is with regards to gameplay and AI as well as graphical upgrades. Unless they make a completely different game for Wii, I would think gameplay should be the same on the Wii. Many of my friends who have bought the Wii, and bought Madden 07 (they are big football fans, but casual gamers) have no interests in buying the newer version every year because a)they feel the core gameplay is the same year after year (and I totally agree), b)they don't play enough to warrent the newer versions. c)when they play with their kids, the kids don't care which version they play on. d)newer Wii owner friends buy the 07/08 version over the newer ones because they are significantly discounted. The bulk of Madden sales occur in the 1st few months of the season, with a possible bump comesuperbowl. Thus in 2 months, Madden 09 sales will be negligable. Madden 09 may catch/pass 07, but will not pass 08, despite a near doubling in the Wii userbase year over year.

With regards to 3rd party numbers. I do not know how to filter exclusives from the total numbers sold, but to get an estimate on sales, I looked at total software sales (almost 170 million Xbox vs ~190 million for Wii), but the more important number is attach rate of 7.4 for Xbox vs 5.1 for Wii (it makes no sense to look at absolute numbers because the userbase numbers are totally different, times are differnent, 3rd party games are different. Attach rate is the only way to tell how many games each individual console owner buys. One way to get an estimate of 3rd party sales is to look at the million sellers and get an estimate. Wii sold 139 million software in the million sellers, of which 131-132 are exclusive (and almost all are Nintendo). I will give you exclusive to the advantage of Wii because most exclusive titles on the Xbox are made by 3rd parties (Gears = Epic, etc). Thus that leaves us with 7-8 million software PLUS a %of the remaining 60 million that are 3rd party/multiplatform for the Wii.

On the Xbox side, 109 million software are million plus sellers, of which 12 games are exclusive which represents 35 million. Thus that leaves 70+ million that are multiplatfrom (vs 7 million for Wii). I will give the Wii full credit and say of the 60 million solftware left that were less than 1 million sold, 100% are 3rd party (that is not true, but for arguements sake lets say that). Then 67 million units of software with 37 million userbase = attach rate of 1.8. For the Xbox, I will do the same, we will assume 100% of the remaining 60 million are multiplatform. Thus 70+60 =130 million, with userbase of 23 million = attach rate of 5.65. Xbox owners support multiplatform titles 3 times as much as Wii owners at the VERY LEAST. My suspicion is that a greater percentage of the less than 1 million sellers for nintendo are Nintendo games anyways vs Xbox. This is my arguement for why I think Wii owners don;t support 3rd party developers.

Similarly what is Nintendo's excuse. PS2 owners supported 3rd party developers great and the Wii is a better console (hardware wise) than the PS2. The problem is that Wii owners look at what they can have on a Xbox/PS3 and then realize that it makes no sense to buy the same game on the Wii. This is not the fault of the developers, but the fault of Nintendo as Wii cannot run Gears or War, or Drakes, or rachet and Clank or MGS, or Forza 2 or Bioshock, or Mass Effect, etc, etc.. The Wii CAN run original Halo, or original Forza, or original MGS, but who wants to play those games on weak hardware in 2008? That is why Wii owners don't support multiplatform titles.

has it ever occured to you, in your percentages, to check how many 1st party games each company releases? Nintendo simply puts out more games.

Seriously, let's just compare with what we have on VGChartz. When I search for Wii titles by Nintendo, I get 37 results. That means that per year(over 2 years), Nintendo has roughly 18+1st party titles. Looking at the 360, I got 31 1st party titles. That's 10+ 1st party titles per year(over 3 years). Nintendo has nearly double the number of 1st party titles out.

You're also using attach rate. Which is obviously going to be higher for lower selling consoles. Gamecube had the highest attach rate of last generation.
Ultimately, the problem stems from the fact that you're making the same mistake as 3rd party developers: you're looking at numbers without context. You go, "oh, attach rate is higher on 360, must be better audience", but what they(and you) fail to take into account is that Nintendo is pumping out 18+ titles per year, and they're GOOD GAMES, whether rated highly or not. Gamers on the Wii are used to the quality that Nintendo has brought to the plate, and aren't going to buy a game unless it meets their standards.

What this all boils down to is a very simple concept that no one seems to get; 3rd party developers are the ones who have the duty to provide quality games that consumers would be willing to purchase. Consumers do not have a duty to purchase games that do not meet their standards.