Nintendo Admits Its Third-Party Sales Are Pretty Terrible

[John Funk]

Nintendo Admits Its Third-Party Sales Are Pretty Terrible

Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has admitted what the rest of us already knew: Most third-party games on the DS and Wii sell like moldy buttermilk pancakes.

Take a look at this list [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games] of best-selling Wii games. You may notice that the top ten titles are, in fact, all Nintendo games - and the first non-Nintendo game even has Mario in it! After that, you need to look down to #15 to find a third-party title that has nothing at all to do with Nintendo (Ubisoft's Just Dance). In general, the list is very, very Nintendo-heavy, which is something that analysts, media and gamers have known for quite some time.

Nintendo knows it, too. Speaking to press yesterday, CEO Satoru Iwata admitted [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-09-30-nintendo-wii-third-party-sales-especially-low-3ds-will-do-better] it was true "that the third party software sales ratio on Nintendo platforms are comparatively smaller in Japan. Wii's third party software ratio is especially low." It isn't just in Japan, Mr. Iwata.

According to graphs from Media Create, third-party sales are a paltry 26% of total Wii software sales. The DS was doing considerably better, with third-party software making up just under 50% of total sales on the platform, but Iwata admitted that it was partly due to the handheld's massive install base.

In comparison, first-party software makes up 20% of total sales for the PSP, Xbox 360, and PS3 platforms - almost the complete reverse of the situation on the Wii.

With the 3DS, though, Iwata emphasized that Nintendo could not allow this situation to continue into its next handheld generation. "We need to decrease the concern that only Nintendo software can sell well on Nintendo platforms and third party software cannot sell in the same volume," he said.

"We will not make a trend similar to the one found for Wii in Japan now ... we feel a need to have closer ties with our third party developers from the beginning."

To that end, he produced statements praising the 3DS from third-party developers behind many of admittedly impressive-looking [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103864-3DS-Software-Lineup-Trailer-Might-Justify-the-Price-Tag] 3DS lineup like Resident Evil, Professor Layton, and Metal Gear Solid.

"Together with the third party software people," said Iwata, claiming that the developers' expectations were humbling, "we aim to expand the sales of Nintendo 3DS, and we will never stop our efforts to expand the gaming population."

(GI.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-09-30-nintendo-wii-third-party-sales-especially-low-3ds-will-do-better])

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[Tom Phoenix]

Considering the amount of third-party software that is already being developed for the 3DS, I would say Nintendo is already making good on their promise.

Still, it is nice to see that Nintendo is actively working in ceasing the "only Nintendo games sell on Nintendo systems" stigma.

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

It's always been that way. Nintendo's software sales have been dominated by first and second party titles.

 

[MikailCaboose]

Well that's because most of the third-party support is pure shit anyways...
And no, I'm not saying that third-party stuff can't be good on the Wii. I loved Cursed Mountain and that was definitely third party.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

The trouble now is that a lot of third party stuff is designed for anything, and then just cobbled together for Nintendo, which has admittedly lower processing powers. As a result, they feel rushed and poor quality, as oppossed to Nintendo, who know how their ystems work, design with them in mind, and know what their fans want.

 

[Brotherofwill]

"Together with the third party software people," said Iwata, claiming that the developers' expectations were humbling, "we aim to expand the sales of Nintendo 3DS, but we still want 300$ for it...bitches.

Nintendo better do something about this trend. I think a lot of companies are already well weary of the situation, EA has frequently commented about not really supporting the system. It's strange to see their unrivaled success without the help of any Call of Duty megasellers, well, but that's Nintendo for you I guess.

 

[therandombear]

I love mad world and no more heroes, and I think those are third party developers? Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.

Loads of new games for the 3DS though from third party developers, may it be successful

 

[TLatshaw]

What I still fail to understand is, why is it Nintendo's fault 3rd party games don't sell well on their systems and what is changing with the 3DS to supposedly turn this around?

 

[John Funk]

"Together with the third party software people," said Iwata, claiming that the developers' expectations were humbling, "we aim to expand the sales of Nintendo 3DS, but we still want 300$ for it...bitches.

Nintendo better do something about this trend. I think a lot of companies are already well weary of the situation, EA has frequently commented about not really supporting the system. It's strange to see their unrivaled success without the help of any Call of Duty megasellers, well, but that's Nintendo for you I guess.

I am going to link to our colleagues at Wired [http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/09/nintendo-3ds-price/] to explain this: The 3DS is not $300, it is 25,000 yen.

 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Maybe that's because the vast majority of third party games on the Wii and DS are total shit and/or made for casual gamers who only buy two games a year? What do you expect Nintendo to do? Make their games worse on purpose? The Wii and DS are not known for their hardcore games. Nintendo's franchises are pretty much the sole exception to this. Add to this the fact that Sony and Microsoft are not game developers. They are electronics companies. Nintendo is the only pure gaming company left standing that makes hardware.

 

[RatRace123]

Oh, Nintendo. I don't take back all those mean things I said about you, because, well, they were true... But I certainly forgive you for most of them.
Still, no matter what you do, nothing will make up for allowing carnival games to be a best seller.

Still, still, nice to see Nintendo trying to reign their shitty 3rd party library in.

 

[Snotnarok]

Hmmm....

"Squaresoft will never have a game on a Nintendo console again" -Nintendo after FFVII was announced for Playstation rather than Nintendo 64.

Pretty sure your 3rd party relations have been bad for a while Nintendo.

 

[2fish]

"Together with the third party software people," said Iwata, claiming that the developers' expectations were humbling, "we aim to expand the sales of Nintendo 3DS, but we still want 300$ for it...bitches.

Nintendo better do something about this trend. I think a lot of companies are already well weary of the situation, EA has frequently commented about not really supporting the system. It's strange to see their unrivaled success without the help of any Call of Duty megasellers, well, but that's Nintendo for you I guess.

I am going to link to our colleagues at Wired [http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/09/nintendo-3ds-price/] to explain this: The 3DS is not $300, it is 25,000 yen.

He is right, my coverter says that is 299.213 USD not 300.

But he does have a point that they could give us another price for no other reason than the Nintendo money god declares it so. Hell nintendo could sell it here for $1.50 if they wanted to, they are crazy enough...

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Yes, but in fairness, most of the third party software on the Wii is unplayable rubbish. There's a few hits here and there, and Sega does what it can here and there as what could be called the most consistent 3rd Party developer.

 

[joshuaayt]

Ever since the N64, 3rd party support has been all over the place. Shame, really- the occasional, very occasional good 3rd party game shows the potential that exists.

 

[shMerker]

More software sells for Wii and DS than any other platform. The upshot of this is that the PS3 and Xbox have a higher ratio of third-party-sales to first-party-sales because the first party sales are so low.

So third parties actually sell more on the Wii than they do on PSP or PS3, and they sell more on the DS than they do anywhere else.

I'd like to draw your attention to the gray bars too. Third party software on the Wii and DS look small compared to first part because the first party software sells so much better too. Nintendo's software sales dwarf both Microsoft's and Sony's. Not only do they top the charts for their own systems, they regularly top the charts for all platforms combined.

Basically, third party sales on wii compare poorly to first party because pretty much any arbitrary grouping of games' sales compares poorly to what Nintendo puts out. You can be an awesome developer raking in tons of cash and still look bad compared to Nintendo. Why would an awesome developer who is raking in cash want to complain about that though?

 

[jamesworkshop]

I think the problem has been solved for them to a degree, the main chips is the same as most of apples handheld devices now and John carmack got Rage (idtech 5) running on the iphone, Epic got the unreal engine 3 to run, Capcom managed to fit a version of MT Framework onto the 3DS.

reduce the gemometry level/texturing and along with the maximum 800x240 framebuffer which can drop to 400x240 when the 3D mode is disabled.
Which is about the sort of resolution games in the early 80's used, and the games over the
4-5 years of the current console cycle become very portable when the resolution is about 9.6 times smalller than the 1280x720 framebuffer used in most of todays console releases.

 

[BrunDeign]

The sun shines, grass grows, and buddy? Nintendo has terrible third party support.

And guess what? IT DOES NOT NEED ANY THIRD PARTY SUPPORT.