Actually, Dno, there are more games releasing to retail on the Wii than the PS3 and X360 combined.

It's both a blessing and a curse.

o this is true and i no but i dont expect huge number from any 3rd party game this year on wii but ps360 has CODMW2, Assaissans cred, splinter Cell, etc etc all to do HUGE numbers. (i could be forgetting a lot but im not gonna look it up lol)

i should of said big name games in that post i will update it

edit: mab monster hunter but all of the last Console MH games did not do HUGE numbers so its a wait and see thing

This is where a lot of people fail to look at the whole picture.   Being a sales site that looks very closely at individual game sales we tend to believe 3rd party games on Wii don't sell very well and this holds some truth...the issue is that publishers tend to look at the portfolio as a whole where the Wii tends to actually have more sales overall (and at times more revenue too as was the case seen in that Activision thread).

We forget that publishers don't expect every game to sell X number of million units and that they actually intent to only sell at times a few hundred thousand and that's it.  For example: Publisher A might release 1 big title on the HD consoles with expected sales of 2 million total while releasing 6 games on Wii expecting sales of 400k a piece which is a total of 2.4 million.

The above scenario doesn't look particularly appealing for Wii from a blockbuster games centric viewpoint (which is the viewpoint most consumers have) but it's very apealing to the publishers and investors.

True that Wii owners would love more actual blockbuster this thrown in the mix but given the development time it takes to plan, secure funding and develop those kinds of games, it's little wonder we haven't received many when you consider the list I provided on page 3.

It's a combination of momentum, brand awareness, and creative stagnation. 360 and PS3 development (originally quite separate, but merged together for financial purposes) were well underway when those consoles launched. Strong support was there from day one, whether the consoles succeeded or failed. Very, very few publishers were looking seriously at Wii at all (SEGA and Ubisoft are two i can think of) from the outset.

Obviously things went as they did, but the establishment of the industry saw no reason to change with it. They had their audience on PS360 locked down, they saw Wii's success beyond that of the GameCube's (e.g., success that didn't come from Nintendo themselves), as purely coming from foreign or new audiences. The majority of developers make the safe bet because they can. Their success exists on PS360, and it takes effort that they simply would rather not employ. That's why even most of the serious 3rd party support comes from 3rd and 4th string teams.

yes good post i can see that.

but when you expect a game to sell 5-6 million you dont put it on the wii. this is what the source said also So this proves that most of the that companies dont need the wii as much as people think they do because if thats the case then a lot of companies would be dead but most are doing fine. now i think a lot of companies see the wiis install base and goes lets try to milk it  but so far lots of HD only companies are doing fine.

yes this....

But dont you think if 3rd parties NEEDED the wii like most say that there would be hardly any games on the HD twins? i mean last gen you NEEDED to make a game on the ps2 thats why it had 90% of the games.. this gen no one can claim that. that is my only point.

@bmaker11: I feel those 2 techs, although late to the party, will provide the change to the interface they need, but they almost certainly have to lead with them...and i'm not sure they want too.

One thing a lot of people don't consider is that many publishers have over-done the (so called) "Casual" games on the Wii because of how successful it has been with unconventional gamers ...

If you go back through the generations you will see that most third party publishers have desperately tried to make games which appealed to people outside of the conventional gaming demographics and have had very little success. Many of these companies realized a long time ago that unless the game market grew beyond its traditional boundries there was a limit to how large the industry could become; but they were trapped because they had no (real) knowlege on how to break into new markets.

Many publishers (at the moment) are so focused on developing the Madden/Halo/GTA for the (so called) "Casual" gamers that they would ignore the oportunity to produce a highly profitable multi-million selling game for the Wii unless it falls into a genre that conventional wisdom tells them (so called) "Casual" gamers are interested in.

For those that are making comments like "With PS3 and 360 now going to have motion control, then we're not really going to see much a jump in graphics next gen."

Actually, it is true that Sony and Microsoft do seem to be embracing the motion tech philosophy in an attempt to increase their systems sales; however, that goes against many of the ideas of customers that have bought PS3 or 360 so far. Many people that bought those systems so far did so because they enjoy much better graphics in their console but they aren't rich enough to be able to go out and buy pcs every couple of years to keep up with the major jumps in pc graphics.

So what happens to the roughly 50% of gamers that prefer better graphics to better controls in their games when the next gen rolls around if Sony and Microsoft aren't trying to have consoles that can hang with some pcs in the graphics department for the next five years?

It could leave the market wide open for those that want to make systems capable of much better graphics as occurred when 3DO entered the market ( and 3DO could have become a much bigger player in the industry if Sony and Sega's own super graphics machines weren't released so close to the 3DO's release).

At least in Japan, Wii has became a platform that no one wants to develop for, save rare cases. Home consoles are dying in Japan, almost all new announcements this year were for the PSP or the DS. Wii hasn't been getting almost any game, while weekly, the DS and PSP are drowning on big announcements.

I honestly see no future for third parties on the Wii in Japan, neither do I see them making games for PS3 or 360, but on the other hand I also see little to no future for the Western developed games, since most of them end up on the HD consoles. Wii is honestly screwed this gen. Tough luck I must say.

What makes my blood boil the most is how no Japanese dev is willing to put their games on Wii, again, save for a few exceptions.