Gamedaily: 3rd Party Sales Numbers*

fearsomepirate

Dinosaur Hunter
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I was quite surprised to read that after 20 months, more 3rd-party titles had been sold on Wii than either of the two competitors. Since the games are cheaper (and there are a number of discount titles as well), it's almost certainly not leading in 3rd party revenue. Numbers of 3rd party titles sold in the US 20 mos after launch:

Wii: 33m
360: 29m
PS3: 20m

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/npd-wii-thirdparty-games-really-do-sell/?biz=1
 
Wonder what the numbers would have been if the Wii got some of the cross platform big sellers like COD4, GTA4, or Assassin's Creed... probably add at least another 5 - 6 million to the lead.
 
But I bet this myth that 3rd parties tank on the Wii will still persist just like the myth of the N64 and Gamecube barely being profitable for Nintendo.
 
Or flip it the other way, even with the benefit of this generation's 2 best selling games in COD4 & GTA4, the other two still sold less. Disappointing.

But those games are split across two userbases. We're not adding up 360 and PS3, and no one other than maybe GAFers are disappointed with CoD4 and GTA4 sales. A better choice of games would have been MGS4 and Halo 3.
 
With double the install base the wii manages 10% more sales. Impressive.
No offense, but when two of the highest quality 3rd party games on the platform are ports of last generation titles does that surprise you?

3rd parties are doing quite well on a platform they haven't taken seriously. Add in 1st party titles and you get a much larger software selling platform then either of the other two. 3rd parties are selling a larger share of games on the Wii, with lesser games at that.

What will happen if they take the platform seriously?
 
Was the Gamecube profitable, do we know for sure?
Nintendo makes a profit on all their hardware from day one. And the profit on their games is really good considering they generally don't have as big production values as others with voice acting and big cinematic sequences.
 
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No offense, but when two of the highest quality 3rd party games on the platform are ports of last generation titles does that surprise you?

No offense, but when the platform itself is a slight upclock+paint job of a last generation platform, does the many games being ports of last generation titles surprise you?

The numbers for "20 months into the lifetime" are interesting in some historical background/lies-damn-lies way, but no publisher is ever going to decide whether to ship a game 20 months into the Wii or 20 months into the 360; they ship games now, or in 6 months etc. - when the other platform already has its "unfair advantage" of one additional year on the market.
 
But I bet this myth that 3rd parties tank on the Wii will still persist just like the myth of the N64 and Gamecube barely being profitable for Nintendo.

3rd party Wii titles did sell poorly for a very long time, don't mistake that. As for the N64, the complaint was always that the N64 was very profitable for Ninny... and the GCN we don't know how profitable it was as the GB/GBA and initial NDS sales were massive and carried the day substantially.

Back on the Wii, we need to factor in the positives (small dev costs, shorter dev window, bigger install base) with some of the negatives (games cost 33% less, royalties are a bigger percentage of profits, you STILL have to advertise the game which is a significant cost, per-unit attach rate is lower, inability to port to PS3/360, unique and at times confusing software adoption patterns, many establish franchises cannot rely on recognition alone as a safe gamble for significant investment, great reviews/top 5% games have met significant commercial troubles, etc).

In a nutshell, for the Wii, it is all about the type of game you are making. There are more variables a recouping the investment on a $20M game can be difficult if not managed well. So while initially it was, "Doh! Wii owners are buying few 3rd party games" the issue is now more, "What games are appealing to Wii owners? What is a safe development pattern to recoup investment?" That said the Wii has a huge amount of shovelware and as the install base continues to outpace the industry their sales, even with a lower attach rate, will continue to increase. This is something that was discussed a lot in 2006 in the price drop threads: are you better off with 20M units with an attach rate of 10 or 40M units and an attach rate of 6? The answer to that question is complex, but from a corporate perspective the first question would probably be, "Do I lose money on each console unit sold?"
 
No offense, but when the platform itself is a slight upclock+paint job of a last generation platform, does the many games being ports of last generation titles surprise you?
Does that mean the few good games from developers should be ports of last generation titles?

That's my problem. Not that those ports exist. I expected them too. The lack of anything original or even quality ports of other titles is what irritates me. The Wii is just an overclocked GCN. That doesn't make the platform weaker then the PS2 now does it? Then why did they release Splinter Cell in the condition it was in?

They are getting great returns on subpar software. So you'd think they'd get better returns on quality software.
The numbers for "20 months into the lifetime" are interesting in some historical background/lies-damn-lies way, but no publisher is ever going to decide whether to ship a game 20 months into the Wii or 20 months into the 360; they ship games now, or in 6 months etc. - when the other platform already has its "unfair advantage" of one additional year on the market.
And the other has the advantage of a larger userbase and larger 3rd party sales.
 
With double the install base the wii manages 10% more sales. Impressive.

The Wii has twice the installed base in the USA? *snip* In this particular article however it is clearly stated that the software sales refer to the US only.

Mod : Socio-political commentary doesn't add to the topic so was removed to prevent derailment.
 
Or flip it the other way, even with the benefit of this generation's 2 best selling games in COD4 & GTA4, the other two still sold less. Disappointing.

GTA4 and CoD4 numbers aren't included in the 360's sales, because they didn't occur in the first 20 months of its release. Try again. The numbers for 360 wouldn't even likely include madden 2008 sales.

The Wii has twice the installed base in the USA? *snip* In this particular article however it is clearly stated that the software sales refer to the US only.

The numbers in that study are 20 months into the consoles life. And yes the 360 was between 5 and 6 million at that time in the US. The Wii is probably over 11 million now. The numbers nintendo are quoting are NPD, so they are talking about US sales.
 
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GTA4 and CoD4 numbers aren't included in the 360's sales, because they didn't occur in the first 20 months of its release. Try again. The numbers for 360 wouldn't even likely include madden 2008 sales.

Ah, the clarification article makes it clear.
There are still question marks, such as if Wii play is counted as a software title sale. If so, this will skew the results accordingly by a number equivalent to the number of sold consoles, roughly 13 million by the time of the Wii data point. If so, we have 33/(60-13)=0.70 or 70% third party software sales.

Given my Sunday morning reading comprehension track record, I daren't say for sure that this isn't mentioned in the article. :)
Sorry Alpha, my bad.
 
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I was quite surprised to read that after 20 months, more 3rd-party titles had been sold on Wii than either of the two competitors. Since the games are cheaper (and there are a number of discount titles as well), it's almost certainly not leading in 3rd party revenue. Numbers of 3rd party titles sold in the US 20 mos after launch:

Wii: 33m
360: 29m
PS3: 20m

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/npd-wii-thirdparty-games-really-do-sell/?biz=1

Not bad at all for Nintendo to outsell both the HD consoles in software and hardware within the same time period. Hardware sold at a profit, and software cheaper to make. I don't think the lower software price is a problem for Nintendo or third parties. Very glad to hear that third parties are thriving on Wii.

I don't have a Wii (yet), and so am not too clear about its software categories. Does the sales number include virtual console titles (Are they distributed directly by Nintendo ? or via the retailers ?)

Moving forward, they will most likely get additional revenue from value-added services too (e.g., the online manga service, Librica). Some of the big game publishers were not focusing on Wii, but we should see more from them as Nintendo forges ahead.

The DS business is doing very well also. I should have bought some Nintendo stock 2 years ago. T_T
 
According to Nintendo's own stats WiiPlay is being played buy alot of buyers.They aren't just taking the disk out of the box and chucking it in the garbage.It's a game and it's actually being played so I don't see why it keeps being removed from the mix when other games that ship with a peripheral don't get the same dismissal.
 
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According to Nintendo's own stats WiiPlay is being played buy alot of buyers.They aren't just taking the disk out of the box and chucking it in the garbage.It's a game and it's actually being played so I don't so it keeps being removed from the mix when other games that ship with a peripheral don't get the same dismissal.

Well even I played it once.

Maybe after that you show it to your friends once. But it's not like that disc is going to keep coming out for repeat sessions.
 
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