In reading these forums it's pretty obvious that some Wii fans feel slighted in the support third parties give to their console.  I've also seen some statements that I believe are misconceptions or the merits of which are dubious.  Anyways these are the things I'd like to point out and see what people have to say about them.

1. The Wii's "Blue Ocean" strategy seems to be conviently forgotten at times

I've seen threads in which some Wii fans praise the Wii's "Blue Ocean" strategy only to then see them completely ignore this fact when they talk about third party games.  They compare the Wii's installed base 1:1 with the 360 and PS3 without taking that fact into account.  Both the 360 and PS3 compare significantly better when comparing the 18-30 male demographic, one of the key demographics by the way for many of the games Wii fans want on their systems as opposed to the 360 and PS3.

2. Third parties are to blame for not taking chances with the Wii

Most companies play it safe, that's a given, and even companies that do take chances only take it so far.    Look at Nintendo, even with all their money they still don't take some of the risks that people seem to want third parties to take.  A prime example being Disaster: Day of Crisis and North America.  It's the same story with HD consoles, how many RPGs or casual titles do you see on those consoles compared with hardcore ones?  Microsoft and Sony both help to lessen the risks with many such titles with incentives, something that Nintendo apparently is not doing (that I know of).

3. Games are cheaper to develop for on the Wii

True but the numbers some people are throwing around are ridiculous.  The kind of titles that some Wii fans want  aren't $4 million dollar games, they're more in the $6-12 million dollar range.  Once you start approaching that kind of budget the $10 premium that HD games have starts to remove the lower development cost advantage.  Also multiplatform development lessens the risk by lowering the development cost per system, something that would be harder to do for major titles built from the ground up for only the Wii in mind.

4. The Wii's third party support will soon dominate for consoles like the DS does for handhelds

That might be true if you want to believe that the PSP is the equivalent to the 360/PS3/PC which to me it isn't.  Look at the number of PSP titles that typically appear in North America and European charts compared to the combined totals for the other three systems.  Also I would argue that the Wii actually is getting support similar to the DS when you take out the titles meant for the demographic that the 360, PS3, and PC dominate.  There were double the amount of titles released for Wii in North America this year compared to the 360 for example.  That number could rise to three times as many next year.  Many of these titles are of course for the demographics that the Wii is much stronger in (casuals, kids, females).

5. Third parties are ignoring the Wii audience

That's simply not true.  There are plenty of games being planned and released for the demographics in which the Wii dominates in.  There was mention in the Sales forum that young children want the Wii more than the 360 and PS3.  Guess what, there are many more games coming out on Wii for young children, far more than on the 360 and PS3.  There are lots of casual games to cover those players as well.  Nintendo of course covers the Nintendo hardcore.  The only people not being covered as well are in the same demographic that the 360, PS3, and PC dominates.

6. The Wii sells more third party games

I'm not going to bother arguing this point since it's still up for debate but eventually it's extremely likely that the Wii will indeed sell more third party games.  The problem is that it also has far more titles on the system sharing in those sales.  For example this year alone the Wii will have over double the amount of games released on it as the 360.  Next year it could be three times as many.  That's a lot of titles to share sales with.  It also causes games to typically go down in price quicker as the system becomes flooded with titles.  Some DS developers are already complaining about this problem.

7. Wii Games have long legs

This is great for Nintendo's own games in which the price can stay the same for years but may not be for many third parties in which the price of their games drops over time.  Would you as a third party rather have your title sell a million in it's first day with the game at full price or have to wait many months and hope it reaches that point?  Also if the game is being discounted by retailers over time to move units it may affect the quantity they're willing to purchase up front next time.

8. Third parties making HD games will come begging to develop for the Wii eventually

This one I don't really understand.  Since some of the cost third parties incurred in developing HD games is in developing the technology and expertise for the HD platforms it stands to reason they will get to a point where game development costs will drop.  Add in the fact that the HD audience is expanding and they already have their products and technologies established on the HD platforms.  It would lead one to expect HD game development would become less risky.  If that is the case then why would they then drop HD development?

9. All HD developers are losing money in 360 and PS3 game development

I could easily make a list of developers that are making profits off the 360 and PS3.  In fact if you look at financial reports from some companies some are doing very well.  To expect all of them to be raking in profits is absurd.  Also if the Wii is the magic profit pill some people claim it is then please explain THQ's last financial report.  You know the one in which the WII and HD consoles have changed positions in terms of THQ's net sales but resulting in THQ making far less money.

Anyways hopefully this leads to some real discussion rather than just the perpuation of the same old claims.

I think this is the best thread/post you ever made. I just wanted to say that.

1. What the hell does the Blue Ocean strategy have to with third-party games?

2. Yeah, the Wii and DS were not risks at all.

3. Just because they're still large doesn't mean they're not cheaper.

5. "Casual" gamer is a mis-used term. Nintendo wants to upstream new gamers into genres like FPS and strategy.

6. Zack and Wiki and NMH have sold well despite NO advertising. That should be proof enough.

7. If a game is wanted, it will show long legs.

9. Only a few are making profit. Activision, Ubisoft, and THQ are the only ones really.  (Activision has World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Guitar Hero, Ubisoft is exploiting the ignorance of the Wii and DS userbase right now, and THQ has lots of movie games.)

You have somehow taken all (and more) of the jumbled notions and half formed arguments I've had knocking around in my brain and made them coherent. I thank you.

excellent points legend. I can't disagree with any of that.

completely agree

Legend11, epic post sire. I must say that was one of the finest reads I've had on these forums.

Wow. First time ever I'm agreeing with Legend.

Well thought out thread.

Especially points 1, 3, and 9

Wii owners want to use blue-ocean when we talk about crazy high sales, but then get mad when developers develop casual games for that same reason.

And whenever a game company makes money while developing huge hits for HD platforms, for some reason the data is inconclusive, but when they lose money, it's all about how HD systems can't make money. Prime example being MGS4 and Konami. It makes a litany of money, but no congratulations for the PS3 for Q1. And in Q2 it makes money again, and again, no love for how MGS4 helped it.

You made a lot of sense with number 7, I'll give you that.

As for number 3, you listed making a "premium" Wii title as probably running you $6-12 million. Do you know how much a game would have to sell to break even on that? One game is $50 (Higher in EU/Lower in Jap). I'll assume it costs $9m to make (the median of 6-12).

It would have to sell 180k to break even. I know that not all the money goes to the devs and it is factored into other expenditures, so to counter that, I'd say the game has to sell an extra 40% of its "breaking point" (180k).

180k * 0.4 = 72k. 180k + 72k = 252k. Unless this big budget game had a worse advertisement campaign than Okami, I don't see how it's success wouldn't be almost guaranteed (it does have to be a good game of course;) )

congrats legend11, this is a very good and well thought out post with many of my thoughts better expressed in it