EA came out shortly after the Cube's release and made a similar statement. They ended up supporting Cube a lot more than N64, which they didn't support at all, but they pretty much just gave them the biggest name ports they had. Boogie is the first time EA has granted Nintendo an exclusive in many years, which is a good sign, but I don't think it has any of the others shaking. No developer has been fooled into believing these numbers are how it's going to remain going forward. Not even Nintendo has been fooled into believing that. If things are still like this in 6 months or a year, then Sony and Microsoft should be concerned. Neither should be worried that Nintendo launched better than they did. Sony never launches well, and Microsoft wasn't concerned with launching well. PSP has a lot more third party games in Japan than DS does, in spite of its userbase.

Well, you can check the US charts on this site. Third-party Wii games in the U.S. currently are outperforming third-party PS3 games, but not always. For example, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is doing better on Wii while Madden 07 is doing better on PS3. But the best-selling third-party games between the two systems have been on Wii (Rayman, Red Steel). I think the Japan numbers are a little disturbing for Nintendo, or should be. There really isn't any very successful software between the two systems, although there are some semi-successes like Gundam Musou (whose publisher probably expected more given the hype). Poor sales of series on Wii that have done well/okay elsewhere (Dragon Ball Z, Sonic, Gundam) must be alarming to third parties who hope for big sales on Wii. But there still hasn't been a blockbuster third-party game released in Japan for the system, so I think we will have a better idea when games like Dragon Quest Swords are released.

1st) Boogie is not the 1st exclusive (look SSX Blur) 2nd) Quit saying about launch... the launch was 4months+ ago and STILL Nintendo owns both Sony and Microsoft. That thing about "Sony never had good launches" is just an excuse about the current situation because even in NA & Japan (where the system launched 4-5 months ago) the sale number are the worst they could ever be...

One thing to consider is which system had the "Better" or at least more anticipated titles? Maybe I don't know Japan well enough but I would suspect that Virtual Fighter, Ridge Racer and Gundam Mousou were all much bigger series than most of what has been released for the Wii so far; just consider that most of the Virtual Fighter and Ridge Racer games sold more in their first week than either of these games will sell in their first year.

I would agree that this aspect is very true - RR7, Gundam Mousou and VF5 are all VERY large sequals. The only major 3rd party game was DBZ2 - which did well. However, if the Wii's ultra-poor 3rd party sales continue in Japan, it might not bode well for *some* Japaneese devs. I am CERTAIN games like DQ will sell insane. However, it is kinda dishearenting when the top 3rd party game did less than any Nintendo game. I guess this shows where the loyalty of the Wii fanbase is in Japan.

Another problem is facing tougher launch competition from 1st party. From Wii you have Wii Sports and Wii Play along with Wario and Zelda. So with an atach ratio of around 3 games per console it's obvious that 3rd party won't do well unless you really have a good game or an antecipated title like dbz. Let's see now with DQ and One Piece Unlimited Adventure.

Ehm dragon quest swords is from a first party developer, not third party, considering they've only made Pokemon games so far. You forget Harvest Moon, that game is from a third party developer and that will most likely sell well in Japan. I can't stand it the Japanese only buy WII sports and WII Play above all WII games, WII sports is fun but WII play?! I support third party just as much as first party, as long as the games are fun and good, but when will the Japanese start doing that before we only see the same old stuff again as we saw on the GC ?! Opoona, Treasure Island Z, One Piece, MySims, they better sell!

WiiGirl - that will be the real question for the Wii. The Wii obviously has the ability to have good, if not great, attach ratios in Japan - Wii Sports and Wii play are almost at a 75% attach ratio per console (far greater than any other game that I've ever seen), and Wario Ware and Zelda are also very high on the list. However, Eyeshield, Necro Nesia, Cooking Mama, and now Sonic are all at or near 10,000 units at launch. I'm not saying these games should of done Zelda or Wario Ware numbers (IMO, Cooking Mama should have, as well as Trauma Center 2). However, as a dev, I would be very wary of some things as those games have done rather crappily, and I was considering putting a middleweight game on the Wii with a J-centric audience (if I was a western dev, I'd go full throttle). What games are on the horizon that look like MAJOR 3rd party games?

The best example of Japan's taste in games would be Zelda : TP, it was designed to have a western appeal, and it's sales in japan have been in line with that, soon to be tripled in total sales by Wii Sports. The same can be said of most Wii games in Japan at this point, there simply aren't that many that appeal to that audience. Dragon Quest Swords is Square-Enix, therefore 3rd party. Expecting DBZ to do good in japan is silly, it's a 20 year old series there, it took over a decade for it to catch on in North America. One Piece, I think, will be a much better scale of how well a licensed title can do, if it turns out to be a decently good game (I look forward to it myself).

Well this might be correct in Japan, but not in US. But for Japan I think the major problem is that they don't buy showelware the two major player that sells in the states is EA and Ubisoft. I feal that no one is making any game for the Japanese public. Another point might be that first party offerings to the PS3 isn't that great as Wii sport or any other nintendo game. So far I must say that neither Wii, PS3 or Xbox360 has seen any major 3rd party sales in japan. RR7 might sound much but when the same dev says that they need at least 500k to break even, not so impressive. Wii sales has according to me been terrible but might do a DS. Last weeks has been great for 3rd party on the DS.