DarkMage619 said:
Nintendo once again has excellent sales of both hardware and software. Something very telling is still evident in the Nintnedo numbers. No 3rd party titles to be found selling big numbers on thier platform. There is no way that Nintendo will be the development platform of choice for 3rd party developers if 3rd party software doesn't move the same units as the other companies. Nintendo has shown for many years now that the best selling software for their systems comes from them and them alone. At least this means that 3rd party support for other consoles will still be strong.
The Dark One
Please explain to me how third party software sold so well on Nintendo consoles during the NES and SNES eras. Nintendo made great games back then, too. Some would say the best on those consoles.
Screw the clueless analyst who proudly pinched this inane theory off and just
had to share it with the rest of the world, like a photo of a rancid, girthy log posted on ratemypoo.com. There is no
magical force stopping third party developers from ever succeeding again on a Nintendo console. Nintendo doesn't need to be scolded for making AAA software. Third parties just have to
1) try harder to release games people want to play (meaning, not shovelware shit) and, in this case,
2) make games from the ground up specifically for the Wii (because of the unique nature of the control method).
Neither of these things have happened yet on a large scale. The most likely explanation as to
why: nobody expected the Wii to sell as well as it has. It takes a long time to make and release a game. Third parties were caught with their pants down, with relatively few in-development projects to release on the new, surprise market favorite. Hence, the abundance of lazy ports we're seeing now, hurried out the door to soak of some of that loose cash while they work on their titles built from the ground up for the Wii.
This is the only explanation that makes sense. If you want to make money, you don't ignore a console forever that's this cheap to develop for and has an install base this massive (and still growing), regardless of some silly stigma attached to the brand name (which, you'll notice, Nintendo is attempting to sidestep by keeping the "Wii" name isolated from "Nintendo" in ads).
The third parties mostly phoned their contributions in during the GCN era, and for that reason, among others, third party sales were disappointing. But some third party titles
did sell respectably (RE4 being the most obvious example). And yet people are so determined to believe this ghost story about the malevolent haunting of Nintendo HQ that they say, "Yeah, but what about these other obviously terrible games? Why didn't
they sell? Why aren't they selling now? See, I'm right!"
Most experienced gamers are not stupid about these things. They read reviews and talk to friends. They know trash when they see it and they avoid it. If I had to make a guess (and any guess will obviously be an oversimplification of the reality of the situation), I would say: most "casuals" haven't seen many games to buy with the "mature", nonthreatening appeal of Wii Sports yet, and most "hardcore" gamers (yes, despite what you might have heard they're also buying the Wii) certainly know better than to purchase the dreck the third parties have rushed out so far.
As soon as we see more top-notch original titles being released from third party devs on the Wii, third party sales will increase. There is no Nintendo curse, and you never need to worry about your company of choice making games that are "too good".