Well theres no denying thats a big factor but a recent article from IGN.com shows that third parties are getting a decent piece of the Wii action.

http://au.wii.ign.com/articles/764/764835p1.aspx

What is interesting, however, is the third party breakdown for both Wii and PS3. Although skeptics are quick to shrug Nintendo' s system off as a " console for Nintendo games," the fact of the matter is that there were not only more third party titles available on Wii than PS3 in 2006, but many of these games also sold better on the Big N' s platform.

Ubisoft in particular was a big winner. Its Red Steel and Rayman Raving Rabbids Wii titles sold approximately 220,000 and 185,000 respectively - nothing to scoff at for a brand new franchise and another that has slumbered for years. Sega' s Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz managed 175,000 in sales. And Atlus had a sleeper on its hands with Trauma Center: Second Opinion, which sold through 115,000 copies. The title - a " Wii-make" of a DS game - required minimal development investment and, that considered, offered big returns.

I hope this spurs more developers into making more games, and more importantly games that take full advantage of what the Wii has to offer.

I' m only getting a Wii for Nintendo games.... I' m sorry, unless I can see otherwise,
games like Red Steel will forever be etched eternally into the dark dank dwellings
of my mind....

Go Nintendo games!

Well that is a big reason why I bought the Wii but thats not to say I won' t buy any 3rd party titles! I can' t get Zelda, Metroid Prime and Mario on any other console so yes Nintendo games are a big reason why I bought the Wii. Well so far I don' t own any third party games for the Wii but thats only because there is a lack quality 3rd party games so far but hopefully that will all change pretty soon. Its time for third parties to take the finger out and start producing quality games for the Wii!!!

ORIGINAL: Duffman

Well that is a big reason why I bought the Wii but thats not to say I won' t buy any 3rd party titles! I can' t get Zelda, Metroid Prime and Mario on any other console so yes Nintendo games are a big reason why I bought the Wii. Well so far I don' t own any third party games for the Wii but thats only because there is a lack quality 3rd party games so far but hopefully that will all change pretty soon. Its time for third parties to take the finger out and start producing quality games for the Wii!!!

They' re the ONLY reason you should have bought a Wii...



I' m trying to think of any other games I am REALLY looking forward to apart from Nintendo games on the Wii..

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Erm... Someone help?

It' s definitely good that third party titles are selling well on the Wii. Hopefully it will make for some really fun and unique titles in the future.

That said, the whole basis of this story is pretty stupid. Yes the wii has more third party titles, but remember, many of them are complete trash, and have such basic graphics and gameplay they could pass for a 6 year old game. Not only that, but comparing a consoles game sales which has sold 4 times as much as another also really doesn' t make sense. If they wanted to do comparisons they should have compared its sales to that of the xbox 360 when it had sold the same as the wii.

This is a perfect example -

the fact of the matter is that there were not only more third party titles available on Wii than PS3 in 2006, but many of these games also sold better on the Big N' s platform.

Yah, that tends to happen when there are 4.7 million people looking to buy games for one console and 1.86 million people looking to buy games for another console.

To sum it up, the whole comparison is stupid and doesn' t mean much because the basis of it is flawed. I would really like to see a comparison like this done well. Like comparing the Wii game sales at 4.7million units to the Gamecubes at 4.7 mill. That would give us a good idea of how much better titles are selling on the wii. Or, as I said, compare it to the Xbox360, or ps3, or xbox. Basically compare it to any console when it had sold 4.7million units and it will be a way better representation than the ps3.

Third party support for Wii at the moment is average at the moment. I have Call of Duty 3, and though i found the game quite enjoyable (playing FPS with a Wiimote isn' t better but for me it was more satisfying with rumble & pointing functions), you can tell from a mile away its a ps2 game ported to the Wii. The menu system screams of ' standard controller friendly' , with no Wiimote pointer support. Also some of the uses of the motion sensor are questionable, especially the prescripted part were you have to wrestle the gun from a german soldier. If you do it wrong not only do you die you can find yourself seriously exhausted after several failed attempts. The driving bits were also a pain but manageable. The paddling bits on the other hand were fun, they should of had more of that. Another thing to note is the sensitivity for aiming needed some tweaking, i' ve played Rayman and the aiming on that game is very good. The graphics well, though acceptable could have been much better (I hope EA does a better job with MoH:V because i will get it if it gets good reviews. I will also get Tiger woods 07 if they get that right too). If built specifically for the Wii it would have been soooo much better.

One thing about COD3 that really pissed me off is at times the i have absolutely no control at all. IT seems as though the game got serious overload of information from the Wiimote. Has anyone else had a similar problem on this game?

Anyway i' m still interested it what third parties can offer. Though admittedly Nintendo games will be my first choice i still think that third parties can provide new and unique experiences. Wiis early success and healthy returns means developers can' t ignore it for too long.

Avarice i think a more fair comparison would be to compare how each console is doing after the first 3/4 months (after launch). IF we were to compare that then the Wii would be ahead by a clear margin (over 360 and ps3). Your comments regarding the disparity between the Wii numbers and ps3 numbers is silly. The reason why the Wii has such a lead is because they CHOOSE to make it that way (ie less advanced), therefore manufacturing the Wii would not be as difficult as it would be for the technological marvel that is the ps3. This is one of the Wiis advantages so do not overlook it simply because the ps3 cannot match the Wii in this regard.

Ars Technica has a good article regarding attach rates of consoles -

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061122-8273.aspx

Wiis attach rate is almost 4 per console -

http://kotaku.com/gaming/iwata/nintendo-we-will-sell-21-million-wii-games-227621.php

the ps3 has sold 5 million games (shipped?)

http://www.psu.com/node/6998

that means an attach rate (according to your numbers) of around 2-2.6
Not bad but with such a low install base its not that good either.

SO the Wii is doing extremely well.

I don' t think you understand what I mean.

I' m saying that comparing software sales on one console which has sold far more than another is inherently flawed.

If there are 4.7million prospective buyers for something, no matter what it is, they are going to purchase more than 1.86 million people.

I mean, the article itself proves how stupid it is to claim the Wii is doing better in its sales of third party titles. At least according to their pie chart. The 360 has sold twice as many copies (297,000) of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. The Wii sold 150,000. The ps3 sold 83,000. You can see they consecutively become roughly half of what the other has sold. Now, the X360 has sold twice as many units as the Wii, and therefore, selling twice as many games makes a lot of sense. However, the Wii has sold 2.5 times as many consoles as the ps3, and it still doesn' t sell double. So if we actually do the math - 83,000 x 2.5 = 207,500. Now we see the ps3 has sold about 37% more copies of the game per console sold.

Hmmmmmmmm, seems to me like the ps3 is selling more third party games per console than the Wii, at least for this title.

Now this is not what I' m trying to prove, in fact I didn' t even know that the ps3 would end up having sold more per console until I did all the math. What I' m trying to prove is that comparing sales of games without factoring in the number of consoles sold is pointless and stupid. If they said it has sold more, they would be right, but they don' t, they say better, look at this quote that follows the pie chart(where the numbers I used above come from) -

As the pie chart above showcases, Activision' s Marvel: Ultimate Alliance also sold much better on Nintendo' s console than it did Sony' s - nearly double, in fact. Still, both versions were outpaced by the Xbox 360 version, which enjoyed sell-through at nearly twice that of Wii.

Well, that whole quote is completely flawed when he says " sold much better on Nintendo' s console than it did Sony' s " . I used the numbers they gave, and proved that per console, the ps3 was the one that sold better but the Wii sold more.

It could all be a matter of poor grammar, but the fact is the article portrays false info. All it would have to say is that the Wii has sold more titles.

edit to fix quotes

Well you are right in a way, comparing the games sales when each system has the same number of units sold would make the comparison a little easier. However I am mainly looking in terms of how much profit is earned by the developer. Face it many of the Wii third party were ps3 ports with Wiimote capabilities. Porting shouldn' t cost too much so any title that sold 100k should earn a healthy profit - happy developer, good news for Wii. I' m not sure if the same can be said for the ps3 though, and only 2 titles sold over 100k. I remember Capcom (was it capcom?) saying it needed to sell 600k games to break even on a ps3 game. WIth this in mind the ps3, regardless of its attach rate is still a difficult proposition.

I would like to point out that the ps3 at launch only managed 1.5 attach rate to Wiis 3.0 attach rate.

Considering that Wii development is substacially cheaper then either platform developers should not have any real reason to pass on developing Wii games (save the absolute need for HD) with this information in mind.

All this article points out is that third party developers can earn healthy profits from a Nintendo console (Wii in this case), even though many think that Nintendo consoles are bought by people who only want Nintendo games.

Oh yah, I agree with most of what you say. My only beef was that the articles comparison, and grammar is very flawed and really needs to be fixed. Otherwise people might take the wrong impression from it.

I' m glad the Wii is selling 3rd party titles. The more games that it has that I want, the sooner I will buy one. The reason I never bothered with the GCube (first nintendo system I didn' t buy), was because it didn' t have enough titles that interested me.

This said, I still think a lot more time needs to pass before we can start judging either the Wii or the ps3.