Most Madden Players are petty hardcore OR conversely pretty casual. But even the casual ones I know (who have both consoles Wii/60) have only bough the 360 Version, mainly because of HDTV/Visuals.

I think the Wii version of Madden is a success, because its not going to ever be able to compete with the 360 as the "main" Launch Console for the title (because of different demographics, and one of Madden's biggest selling points are improved visuals every year.), but sales have been very good aside from that.

Thanks, I was hoping someone would take the bait.  If Legend won't step up to the debate then at least I can have some fun with you.

Hrmm.  My point was that people won't buy bad Wii games, but would instead buy good 360 games.  You brought up Madden as an example.  Lets take a look at Madden's scores shall we?  

Madden 08 Xbox 360 Gamerankings average 83%
Madden 08 Wii Gamerankings average 77.5%

I wonder why people would buy the Xbox 360 version more? hehe.  Again, we are comparing an American market with many more Xbox 360 owners.  So, do you have another example? I mean, I can certainly pull up examples of quite a few high budget Xbox 360 games that flopped.  After all, what third parties should really be concerned about is investing a lot of money in a game that doesn't sell.  The Wii costs signifficantly less to develop for, so much fewer copies would have to be sold to make a profit.  Let's take a look shall we:

-The Darkness scored an 83% on Gamerankings and sold .24 million copies.
-Stranglehold, maybe not the best game but one of the most high budget games this generation, sold .22 million copies
-Viva Pinata scored an 85% on Gamerankings and flopped hard
-Burnout Revenget with an 89% on Gamerankings pulled in a whopping .38 million copies

Each one of these games cost more than any 3rd party Wii game to develop.  Some of them represent gigantic losses for their companies.  Stranglehold cost more than most 3rd party Wii games combined.  When we talk about where 3rd party support will go, we can't look at just raw sales figures.  A the average Wii game costs less than half as much as the average 360 game to develop.  When you consider that, the 360 is hardly the "safe money" that you and Legend want to make it out to be.  Yes, some good games have sold very well on the 360 but many haven't even broke .5 million, which is far below the profit mark for an Xbox 360 game.  

So if I point out some low scoring games on GameRankings that have sold well on the Wii what will be the excuse then?  See that's the problem, there's always an excuse, but what people need to understand is that third parties don't want to listen to excuses on why their games didn't sell, they simply want them to sell.

I mean look at Madden, the excuse before was that they needed to make the game more accessible to Wii fans, well they did that and it basically bombed so now the excuse was that it's because of it's score or the 360 had better graphics or whatever, but in the end it bombed and that's what third parties look at.

Oh I agree completely. That's exactly what they want, and with the kind of money 360 and PS3 games cost to develop they don't have the luctury of being uncertain about their game sales. The bad games on the Wii that have sold well include... Wii play lol. You want to show many any Wii games that had any serious development cost in them that flopped? There are only a few that ever had effort put into them to this point in the Wii's life. Red Steel, which broke 1 million as a launch game, Rayman Raving Rabbids which did the same, and Resident Evil 4 which shattered Capcom's sales projections. If you don't believe me that the 360 isn't such a safe sales bet I can keep going through good or expensive games that flopped.

As far as games like GTA, Soul Calibur, etc. those are established franchises that shouldn't have any trouble selling on the 360. I still think most franchises from last gen or the gen before will be on the 360 and the PS3. However, I think most big new IPs are going to be on the Wii because that's the safest place to make them. If they flop on the Wii they company doesn't lose much. There is precedent of new IPs being successful already. If they flop on the 360 or PS3 it could be a bankrupting move. Stranglehold probably means goodbye Midway.

No, your absolutely right. All developers care about is profit. That's exactly why I think you are wrong and that the Wii should have trouble with 3rd party support. Similarly, look at the DS. It started out with crap 3rd party support too. All analysts predicted the PSP would whipe the DS out. It took a while, but look where the 3rd party support is now... Square Enix is making 9 PSP games, 6 of which are just remakes of their old games. They have 16 DS games made or in production and only 5 are remakes. This is the same accross all 3rd party companies. It's ridiculous to expect 3rd party support in the first year considering the gloom and doom that was spread about the Wii's fate before launch. Not to mention games on the 360 and PS3 take 2 to 3 years to develop. This means 3rd parties are still trying to wrap up their 360 and PS3 projects and will be through early 08.

 you really want to use gamerankings for the basis of your argument? cause I'm sure everyone that bought Madden looked at the reviews first (as if 77.5 were bad) right?  What about the "revolutionary" controls?

 Rayman 76.5

Wii Sports 76.4

Elebits 75.4

Excite Truck 75.0 

Big Brain Acedemy 70.0 

Red Steel 65.0 

Mario Party 8  64.0

Cooking Mama 62.0

Wii Play 60.2

Pokemon Battle Revolution 57.1

How do you explain the sales of those then?  If 77.5 is bad, then some of these are pure crap.  I say because none of them are targeted at the 360 demographic, i.e. they are targeted at a younger audience (yes, I know, lots of adults buy and play them, blah, blah, blah...)

Which brings me back to my original point in this whole discussion...a larger percentage of 360 owners have disposable income to throw at games, where as a good chunk of the Wii's targeted market doesn't have an income.  Therefore "true" software sales (i.e. not "freebies") will continue to be led by the 360 until the Wii has a significant install base lead (at least twice). 

(And I don't want to hear how the 360 has more consoles on the market, etc.  If you take off Wii Play and Wii Sports, the PS2 is outselling the Wii in software, yet being dominated by the 360)

 The Darkness and Stranglehold are not 360 exclusives and are "just another fps", yet still selling as much or more than most Wii 3rd party games.

Viva Pinata was targeted for the "nintendo" market, hence it's flop on the 360 (hello DS) 

Oh, and Burnout: Revenge?  Please, that made nothing but money for EA.  It was out on the Xbox months before the 360...380,000 units purchased, most probably for a second time...

Thanks, it has been fun

 Lol, it sounds like you just want to rationalize this however you can.  Sales data is sales data.  If you want to play with one side of it to make it worse then I think that speaks for itself pretty clearly as to what your real goal is here. 

The fact is that people buy the Wii FOR Wii Sports.  And while Wii Play may come with a remote and be responsible for enticing people to buy it, this is no different than any other bundle or package but we are supposed to discount it because it is conveniant for you?   The fact is that Wii=motes are $40 and Wii Play is $50.  So people can get Wii-motes cheaper if they aren't interested in the game.  Would you discount Wii-Play's sales if it sold for  $10 by itself?   Considering that people *choose* to pay an extra $10 to buy that remote with the game I don't see why those sales should be subtracted out.  If they don't want Wii Play they can keep their $10.  Sorry but you have "zero" good arguments of why to discount those sales particularly Wii Sports.

@Legend11,

If you think they made madden into an accessible game then we differ in opinion right there. I own Madden '07 and have spent some time playing Madden '08 and quite honestly I think Madden '08 was a step backwards not forwards.  So if the fact that people aren't buying Madden '08 is a major point for your argument you will have to excuse me if I just don't buy it.

I really don't follow your logic thus far either.  You gave naznatips a hard time after he listed several games that had huge budgets on the 360 yet bombed  and in the same post you mention the Wii version of Madden which was bad and bombed. 

It seems we agree that the 3rd Party devs are looking to see which games bomb, but I think they are capable of noticing that the crap games are the ones that are failing and the good games are the ones that are succeeding.  Boogie flops while Metroid sells well, that is not a hard equation to figure out from a developer standpoint.

Make good game = make good money 

I'll let Naz respond to the bulk of this since it is his discussion, but I don't think Naz is saying that 77.5 is bad at all. I think he is saying when you have two supposedly identical games with reviews that are that far apart that most people are going to go for the better reviewed one. And it isn't that surprising that the version reviewed better does well when you consider a much larger install base in the market in question.

I didn't say it was bad, I said it was worse.  You asked why more people bought the Xbox 360 version.  I showed you. Pokemon Battle Revolution, Elebits, Big Brain Accademy, and Excite Truck bombed.  Wii Sports and Wii Play are pack ins.  What, they count now that they work for your argument but they don't count when they work against it?  That's pretty childish. 

Mario Party 8 is first party.  We are talking about 3rd party.  Red Steel was high budget, not high scoring.  I said that specificially in all previous posts.  .24 and .22 million are not as much or more than most 3rd party Wii games.  You might want to try and debate like an adult rather than pull stuff out of your ass.  Those flops also cost their companies a small (darkness) and very large (stranglehold) fortune.  The fact that they are multiplatform makes it even scarier.  Not only could they not sell on the 360, they couldn't sell on the 360 and PS3 combined. 

Again you come back to the same ignorant argument you started with.  A larger amount of 360 games are purchased because they have a much larger library of quality titles at this point in time.  It has nothing to do with the amount of money they make.  The 360's target userbase is teenagers and college age males.  They certainly don't have much if any more gaming money than kids and adults.  Meanwhile there are still a multitude of good 360 games that completely flop, and they cost many times more to make than Wii games.

You can't make a valid 3rd party sales comparison right now because the quality difference is too large right now.  Thanks for playing, but you weren't much fun to debate with.  If you come up with anything new please come back, but don't repeat the same point that I already shot down again.  I'd rather find someone with a better understanding of the facts to debate with if that's all you are going to do.

What is your definition of bombed?  You say Pokemon and Excite Truck both bombed...so I guess Mario Strikers and Sonic both bombed as well?  

Pokemon at 275,000

Excite Truck at 305,000

are both busts, yet RE4 "shattered capcom's sales records" at 384,000

Just to prove my point regarding Stranglehold and The Darkness selling as much or more than most Wii 3rd party games: 

SSX Blur 130,000

The Bigs 120,000

Cooking Mama 170,000

Spiderman 3 216,000

Madden 08 150,000 

Tiger Woods 08 65,000 

Harry Potter 100,000

Surf's Up 50,000

Transformers 100,000

Brunswick Bowling 30,000

Boogie 90,000

Carnival Games 70,000 

flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flop, flopity flop..... 

Well I counter your stereotype: "the 360's target userbase is teenagers and college age males"

with my own:  "Wiis target market is prepubescent children and the elderly"

catch you on the flip...flop

And the games you listed were bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, and very bad. Sorry but if you are suggesting that bad games flopping is a bad thing then you are in the wrong place. Perhaps you should try another site where people are only interested in big numbers right now. But on this site we look at the situation as a whole. I see pretty good sales numbers considering the youth of the console and I see games that should be doing badly...doing badly.

You seem to look at the same situation and think "Well since software sales aren't through the roof like hardware sales its horrible, and omg bad games are bombing, I guess the Wii is just a fad afterall."

 edit: Luckily reality seems to be on my side for the moment as the past week has been pretty good for new 3rd party release announcements.  I have to say its amusing to watch the arguments evolve over time.  See a few months ago the 360 position was "Wii has no good 3rd Party Support".  And at that time Bod, Naz, and Myself all said "It will come and it will be bad at first and get better over time...just like every console."  And then here we are with the bad games being released and exciting games being announced and ...well honestly I can see where this is going already.  I personally can't wait for next year as these games are released and doing well. I can't wait to hear what the next argument in the long line of arguments is going to be.