It´s commonly known that thirdparties are struggling to sell well on Wii in Japan with few titles reaching over 100k.

A few exceptions are Square-Enix´s Dragon Quest Swords, Namco-Bandai´s Tales of Symphonia 2 and Hudson´s Deca Sports.

This week N-B´s Taiko Drum Master Wii debuted at sales of 106k first week according to Media Create. Could this become Wii´s biggest thirdparty selling title yet? I mean the number may not seem huge but I think it´s a title that could have good legs, first day sales of just 44k and it reached 106k for the week. Add to that forthcoming weeks of strong holidaysales and I think it could have a shot. What do you guys think?

By the way do anybody have the numbers on the best selling thirdpartytitles for Wii in Japan?

Edit: Taiko Drum Master Wii passed 500k this week on famitsu and is a sure thing now as overtaking the crown from Dragon Quest Swords as the biggest thirdparty seller over in Japan!

Maybe, but it will need amazing legs, not just good ones. I guess that it will end up as second best selling one for now, but it won't be able to top Dragon Quest Swords which is just short of 500k in Japan IIRC. I expect Taiko Drum Master to end at about 350k, but as you say, it hold up great from first day and it's holiday time, so maybe it sees another sales trend than most of games do in Japan.

Dragon Quest Swords is number 1, yes that figures. If I remember it correctly that was mostly due to a big first week. Yeah it will all come down to legs for Taiko Drum Master, I don´t know, I just have a feeling it will do very good. We´ll see.

Symphonia 2 is at 220k or something.

Deca Sporta is the second biggest, 250k I believe.

I hope next year third party games start selling better on the Wii, they deserve the sales, we have seen so many poor performing games this year :S

 Ok, then I predict that Drum Master will beat that one at least. But wouldn´t it be great if Wii could have a real thirdparty hit in Japan? Maybe that would put some more faith among thirdparties that their games can actually sell well on the platform? If Dragon Quest X haven´t done that already I mean.

i think Monster Hunter 3 is needed to get more core japaneese gamers on wii


thats why i think fragile will sadly bomb

 Is it really, damn I thought that some more games sold more than that. Ok then, Drum Master will definately be at least the second biggest seller behind Dragon Quest Swords.

 You may be right about that and I for sure cannot wait until MH 3 comes! What I do think plays to Drum Master´s advantage though is that the title is looking likely to score with the "casual" public, hence why I think it will have great legs. Better than nothing I suppose, it still would show that a thirdparty title could sell really well on Wii.

Sorry, I got confused, but still the second game isnt a lot higher

DQS (2007) 500k SE
RE:UC (2007) 280k Capcom
Deca Sporta (2008) 250k Hudson
DBZ: BT3 (2007) 245k Namco Bandai
ToS2 (2008) 215k Namco Bandai
Family Trainer (2008) 145k Namco Bandai
We Ski (2008) 140k Namco Bandai
RE4 (2007) 140k Capcom
P Pro Baseball (2007) 140k Konami
Kidu Senshi Gundam (2007) 110k Namco Bandai
OP: Unlimited Cruise (2008) 110k Namco Bandai
Chocobo's Dungeon (2007) 110k SE
WE 08 Playmaker (2008) 110k Konami
OP: Unlimited Adv. (2007) 110k Namco Bandai
Shiren Wanderer 3 (2008) 105k Sega
Ennichi no Tatsuzin (2006) 105k Namco Bandai
Naruto Shippouden (2007) 100k Takara Tommy


Namco is the big winner. As for the years, 2007 was by far the best for third party games.

We can add Taiko no Tatsujin to this list, but theres still time for it to sell.