Wii leads but third party games are trailing

Posted Feb 22, 2007 at 2:24AM by QJ Staff Listed in: Wii Tags: GameCube, graphs, NFL, Nintendo of America, NPD, Zelda
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Graph of Wii games' sales performance - Image 1


The Nintendo Wii continues to show impressive sales figures from its December breakout and well into January, reports the NPD, a leading tracker of video game console and software sales numbers.

Some skeptical analysts earlier predicted that Nintendo of America may again fail to deliver hardware units to meet the demand posted by consumers, which was apparently wrong as the Wii sold 435,000 units which puts it far ahead of rivals PlayStation 3 which chalked in 244,000 while Microsoft's Xbox 360 registered a significant 294,000. Perhaps the most amazing figure is that of the Playstation 2's which, despite the fact that it's 7 years old, had 299,000 people buy it.

Nintendo seems to have made it a point not to make the same mistake they made with the GameCube, which had a good showing at the onset but failed to deliver in its first quarter during its heyday.

Moving on to software, Nintendo games continue to rake in cash as WarioWare: Smooth Moves and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess have combined for a dominating 392,000 copies sold in January alone. Smooth Moves led the way with 202,000 while Twilight Princess sold 192,000. This ups the total count for the latest Zelda to 1.1 million copies sold. The figure is for the Wii version only and does not include the GameCube version's 670,000 buys in the US since it shipped.

Rayman Raving Rabbids with 185,000, Ubisoft's Red Steel's 260,000 and Madden NFL '07with 56,000 round up the top five for last month. This concretizes the notion of some that third-party games most often do not do well on Nintendo platforms. Thoughts, violent reactions, a different view on this scenario? Speak out in the comments section.

Via IGN

 
 
 

Comments [refresh]

by KesieV - 2007-02-21 21:58
» quality!

3rd party games looks like Playstation 2 games (yeah, 1st party games look like gamecube games --- let's give them more time)

Probably because they just ported their PS2 engines for Wii instead making something newer or adapted?



X360 can use consolidated and newer crossplat engines (cough cough... Unreal Engine...) so is easier.



3rd party have to risk some cash and invest on developing an engine fitting the Wii. IMHO ;)

by Fallen - 2007-02-21 22:07
» Indeed.

I agree with KesieV, 3rd party developers cant expect to have sales on par with greats like Zelda when they don't release high quality products.



You want sales?. Then put some time and effort into your games.

by hmm - 2007-02-22 01:52
» Yup

Madden that came out for Wii was fun to play but I think they used an engine from 5 years back or something. Rayman was pretty sweet game so I deffinatly see that coming in 3rd but yes if 3rd parties want sales for the Wii they accually need to make something. It's not like they are competing with MS in house or Sony in house.

by pre-mature - 2007-02-22 02:35
» Give it time

Trashing 3rd party games already?! Given past history it makes sense that 3rd party developers would be a little leary of putting out games for Nintendo when it had been the cellar dweller with its last console. Now that they see it sells and people like it, they will put more time and effort into it. Just give it chance people.

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