Souldriver said:
So wait, Nintendo has sold more than 50% off all software sold on all 3 next-gen systems combined? In other words: they own more than 50% of the software market?
Yeah. Even more amazingly, Nintendo also has more than 50% of the handheld market.
Just a quick software analysis:
Wii/PS3/X360:
2,972,373 - Wii 3rd-parties
2.026.259 - PS3 3rd-parties
1,489,957 - X360 3rd-parties
9,623,641 (17 titles) - Nintendo 1st party Wii software
6,488,589 (211 titles) - 3rd parties combined (Wii + PS3 + X360)
8,209,229 (242 titles) - All non-Nintendo software (including Sony & Microsoft) (Wii + PS3 + X360)
DS/PSP: (from the
DS/PSP chart)
29,189,862 - DS 3rd-parties
12,932,966 - PSP 3rd-parties
53,750,181 (81 titles) - Nintendo 1st-party DS software
42,122,828 (553 titles) - 3rd-parties combined (DS + PSP)
44,991,267 (592 titles) - All non-Nintendo software (including Sony) (DS + PSP)
If this doesn't illustrate Nintendo's absolute grasp on Japan, then I don't know what else to say. In the current gen home console market, Nintendo has 54.0% of all software sold even though they don't release titles on 2 of the 3 systems. Every other publisher combined (including Sony and Microsoft) accounts for 46.0%. And this is with only 17 titles released by Nintendo, and 242 titles released by everyone else. Yeah, that's right. 17 Nintendo games have outsold all 242 games released by everyone else.
And things are pretty much the exact same in the handheld market. Nintendo has 54.4% of all software sold, whereas every other publisher combined (including Sony) accounts for 45.6%. And this is with only 81 titles released by Nintendo, and 592 titles released by everyone else. Again, 81 Nintendo games have outsold all 592 games released by everyone else.
It is staggering - almost to the point of being unbelievable. Things should slowly improve for 3rd-party percentage on the handheld market with DQ9 and other efforts coming, along with Nintendo seeming to back off of DS development a bit. But it could get even more lopsided in the home console market in the short term with Wii Fit still going strong, plus Smash Bros. and Mario Kart coming soon.
In any case, this is why I laugh whenever developers or publishers (or even fellow GAFfers) make comments suggesting that publishers should avoid Nintendo systems because they don't want to compete with Nintendo. The simple fact is - they already are competing with Nintendo, regardless of what system they put their titles on. And they are losing that competition - badly.
I would suspect that almost everyone who owns a PSP also owns a DS in Japan, so whenever a PSP owner buys a Nintendo published DS game, that is money that could have gone towards a PSP game. The publisher was still competing with Nintendo for that money even though they made an effort to avoid the Nintendo platform. Likewise, even though the situation with the Wii/PS3 isn't quite as dramatic, I am sure that a significant percentage of PS3 owners also own a Wii in Japan, and that number will likely continue to grow over time. And I am sure that nearly all PS3 owners probably own a DS.
This isn't to suggest that some games don't make sense on non-Nintendo platforms. But when Nintendo starts achieving the mass-market penetration that they have with the DS/WII, publishers have to realize that they can't avoid competing with Nintendo simply by avoiding Nintendo platforms.
The numbers speak for themselves. It's just incredible.