"To begin with, Nintendo listed 15 first-party DS titles and 11 first-party Wii titles that classified as million sellers and received sales during the period of April 2008 to December 2008, the first three quarters of Nintendo's current fiscal year. While the list doesn't include games that may be million sellers but did not post million unit sales over the last nine months, it also includes 17 games that launched in one or more markets before April 2008. The presence of so many of these titles goes to show Nintendo's ability to exhibit what they call "evergreen" sales long after a game's release."

Why is this? Isn't this ultimately what makes all other software developers fail by comparrison?  How is this achievable?

Wii Music didn't do this and according to Iwata, there's plenty of Nintendo titles that were not succesfull, so what is the key? How come Halo and GTA are the only games to keep the distance?  I think after price reductions its uneligable and never in the top 20 or 30 either for long.

Halo and GTA manage it because they are particularly huge franchises... and the resulting hype surrounding them means that they sell huge initially, but are also deemed "system sellers" so people buying the console new get the games.... and often the games get price cuts relatively quickly and people think "What the hey, only £20 so I may as well see what the hype is about"

Nintendo manage it with so many games, (all the way back to the NES, or a notable example being on GB with Pokemon. Which stayed in or near the top 10 weekly software for 3-4 years) and somehow don't bother with price cuts either.... I have no idea why.

The games have broad appeal to audiences outside the normal "hardcore" audience. Hardcore fans are the ones who gobble up all the media and hype for games, and are raring to go on day 1, so these games sell huge in the first few weeks, and fall off the charts soon after. For the non-hardcore, they don't devote their lives to games, and expect the games to fit their lives, not the other way around; they will buy a game when it suits then, so a good game with broad appeal will keep selling as more people buy the consoles, and go back to the store looking for something else to play.

If a game can't get into this evergreen state, then its because it didn't have the broad appeal; either it's a hardcore game, or the game sucks and word of mouth kills of any potential residual sales.

WiiMusic? I haven't played it, but it doesn't sound very interesting.

GTA and Halo, they're hardcore, that's why they stopped selling months ago.

There are third party Wii games that keep selling, so they are evergreen, just to a lower degree.

I'd say because they are highly accessible and/or are big name franchises (i.e Mario).

Halo and GTA have the later, and a large part of their success is that they achieved the former from the start (I've seen "casuals" become "gamers" because of Halo and it's not exactly hard to kill people and hijack cars in GTA). That's what alot of game lack.

It helps that we don't get a new one for X amount of years. I'm sure if GH was once every 3 years (with an awesome version each time) it'd be in that category, but since it's a yearly thing, the sales are spread out per version (and thus less impressive as stand alone games sales wise). Same with Call of duty.

Nintendo does it best because we only get 1 or 2 games from a franchise each generation. So a person who buys a Wii in year 6 is still going to pick up Super Mario Galaxy because there's been no other super mario game on the Wii. By year 6, Halo would have had Halo Wars, Halo ODST and perhaps even a Halo 4, GTA would have had the 2 DLC expansions and maybe even a GTA: Insert City here game by then.

On top of that, one thing the "core" developers need to do is post-purchase support. I guarantee you that had CoD:WaW not come out and Call of Duty 4 got another set of map packs, it'd sell as well as most of Nintendo's games, perhaps even better.

I can't say for sure why Wii music hasn't caught on fire, but I'm guessing in an age of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, a music game like Wii music that isn't super accessible (have you played the drums?) isn't going to fly. Wii Fit didn't have much (if any) competition for fitness gaming software and Wii sports provided us with a new way to play particular sports. Wii music doesn't do that because we've been playing the guitar and drums in arcades (and now homes) for years now and it just doesn't do anything better.

Legacy. Its reeping the rewards of being an AAA developer for 30 years. Sony was never known for their first party games in the ps1 and ps2 era. They piggy backed off 3rd parties so their legacy ended as soon as they went mutiplat. Halo belongs 100% to microsoft, so in 20 more years, it can do the same. Nintendo has 2 solid generations of human beings. Kids that turned adults and had kids themselves

Nintendo knows how to treat the human-mind; Fun, accessable, exciting, thrilling, loveable, memorable, athmospheric. It`s not that hard.
If microsoft stopped thinking ONLY about money, they might get some respect from countries outside US. And stopped making games for age 12-16 only.

Nintendo will always stand out as the major entertainer in video-games.

Amen

 From what I've seen most of the third parties legs are from price cuts, the games sales dry up until they are reduced, whereas Nintendo can hold their price.

 Other then the softwares appeal, a big reason is Nintendo's marketing. I've seen TV adds for stuff like Animal Crossing DS and New Super Mario Bros 3 years after they were released, thats the key thing. I'm not sure if third parties could attempt something like this though, as that sort of marketing budget is hard to justify without trying to sell consoles, as well as the prejadise retailers have to non-Nintendo software on the Wii...

Nintendo has become the video game equivalent of Disney. Mario and gang are all a staple part of the Nintendo Empire. Microsoft then is trying to be the next Star Wars and Sony completely lost their identity.

But why can't other companies replicate this? Why can't japanese companies, that arguably employ the same graduates from the same backgrounds, give Sony this capability? Is it really experience and branding, 20 yrs of friendly entertainment must be very effective.

edit >Wiisports ads still running on tv, There is no Mario or Link being used.