Yahoo News: Nintendo wins over outside game publishers with Wii

Wed Jul 16, 9:34 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In the video game industry, the spoils of the console wars come in the form of support from third-party software publishers selling games to run on your machine.

Nintendo Co Ltd, surging from the commercial success of its Wii game machine, is winning over this coveted group of partners in a marked departure from the Wii's ill-fated predecessor, the GameCube.

During this week's E3 video game industry trade show, Nintendo boasted about the success that third-party publishers are finding on the Wii, saying that 19 non-Nintendo games have surpassed the 400,000 unit sales mark in the United States.

"When this generation started, if you would have talked to any of the third parties, chances are they were putting their investments in other consoles, not the Wii," said Reginald Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America.

"They've all been shocked by the success that has happened in the marketplace and had to catch up with Wii development."

Third-party publishers tend to flock to the best-selling game machine since this gives them a chance to sell more games. This tends to set off a virtuous cycle where a leading game machine will feature better games, which then drives more console sales.

Games that publishers began working on after the Wii's sudden success are just now being brought to market, Fils-Aime said, meaning the third party sales momentum will only continue to increase.

The GameCube was routinely blasted for being a showcase only for Nintendo-created games like "Metroid Prime," "Animal Crossing," "Super Mario Sunshine," "Super Smash Brothers Melee" and "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker."

For Nintendo, these first-party titles are more lucrative because the company captures all the revenue and profit from game sales compared to a small royalty from third-party games. However, outside support is critical to keeping customers loyal with a diverse set of titles available on the console.

Many third party titles released on multiple platforms severely underperformed on the GameCube. In less than two years, the Wii has sold 24 million units worldwide, more than the GameCube sold during almost six years on the market.

The Wii, which debuted in late 2006, also leads Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 and Sony Corp's PlayStation 3, which have respectively sold 19 million and 12.85 million units since their launch, as of the end of March.

DOES THE WII HAVE LEGS?

Still, competitor Microsoft questioned Nintendo's lofty standing among third party publishers.

"Nintendo is a great company. It's got a great program, but in terms of the financial opportunity for third party partners, Microsoft wins hands down," said Don Mattrick, a senior vice president at Microsoft's Xbox division. "We're not counting in increments of 400,000."

Mattrick said the majority of games being purchased for the Wii are still Nintendo games, and that third parties are left to battle for the fraction of profits that remain.

However, French publisher Ubisoft Entertainment, an early believer in the Wii, is currently one of the top third parties on the console after committing to significant Wii development more than three years ago.

While Ubisoft was one of the first to see the potential, competitors like Electronic Arts Inc are quickly closing the gap.

"All games are going to be on the Wii," said Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter. "There's a base of 20 million people who will buy your game."

And rather than create dumbed-down versions of existing games, as many third parties were accused of doing during the early days of the Wii, many publishers are changing the way they develop games to take advantage of the Wii's motion-sensing controllers.

"The Wii .... has opened up an entirely new set of gamers that weren't there before," said Electronics Arts Games Label president Frank Gibeau, noting that Wii games can appeal to anyone from 8-year-olds to 80-year-olds.

Oh GAF, your GIF making skills never cease to amaze me.

ravenprose said:

Yahoo News: Nintendo wins over outside game publishers with Wii

I read that the other day. When companies start putting all their big games on wii in addition to other platforms, I'll believe it. Nitendo, from their charts are selling a ton of software. People dont believe it because they look at NPD and sales for individual titles. What Wii has a larger range of titles seller smaller amounts, still adding up overall to a higher number of 3rd party titles sold. I have no idea why they just highlighted US sales of 3rd party games at the conference. They have a number of million sellers already including their own games, i would have just shown all the million sellers worldwide.  

ravenprose said:

Fable II's Condoms Made From "Only The Very Best Animal Intestines"

That's disgusting. What is wrong with Molyneux?

And BTW all these E3 lists of the great games and I know that De Blob wasn't even showcased in a major way there, but this game has to go on any best looking list. So far I think only me and Edge have looked at the new videos, but check this out:

http://uk.media.wii.ign.com/media/947/947046/vids_1.html

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=193534

100+ Siren PS3 screens

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=193478

New De Blob trailer

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/891/891710p1.html

IGN conduit preview, hands on

We had absolutely no trouble blasting our way through a portion of the opening stage, effortlessly targeting enemies and taking them down with different weapons, from a powerful handgun to a sniper rifle and even some alien tools of destruction inspired by the Half Life series.

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/891/891812p1.html

My Sims Kingdom IGN preview

MySims Kingdom is really more of a refined sequel. It doesn't stray too far from the original's foundation, but does make a few additions. Now, as you walk around the world, which is separated into different kingdoms, you can take part in more activities. The first game had prospecting. Now there's also mining, wood-chopping, for instance. You'll use the Wii remote to hack through a tree. Its up to you to decide how you want to play. You'll be able to earn essence, the game's money, if you chop down a tree, but you will also have killed the tree.

Gametrailers Banjo blow-out Apparently not as good as Starfox Adventures

ravenprose said:

gamingeek said:

Gametrailers Banjo blow-out Apparently not as good as Starfox Adventures

Getting a 404 error on the Banjo blow-out link. Looks like you have some extra spaces after the .html that's causing it.

I fixed the space, but it worked on Opera even with the space.

iga_bobovic said:

ravenprose said:

gamingeek said:

Gametrailers Banjo blow-out Apparently not as good as Starfox Adventures

Getting a 404 error on the Banjo blow-out link. Looks like you have some extra spaces after the .html that's causing it.

I fixed the space, but it worked on Opera even with the space.

I was laughing at the subtitle

And you gold shaded Dora the Explorer as major news

Keep the comedy coming.

So I just read Matt C's E3 editorial. Spot on really.

What nintendo should have done is said before the conference what the focus would be on and given some sort of indication or time frame for future reveals, especially for the core gamer demographic. Or they should just section off the casual and DS games into one conference and hold the gamer conference at a separate venue. I think Eurogamer put it well in that game journalists are one small evolutionary step up from your average frothing mouthed game fan. We want our E3's like a concert, trailers, loud music, whiz bang effects, nude women etc.

They got it so right in 2004 with Prime 2, RE4 and Zelda and pretty damn right in 2006 with the huge hardware reveal and lines stretching all over E3. But E3 is now screwed with the downsizing, everyone is holding their own separate events at different times of the year, since E3 downsized leipzig attendance shot up 25% or more and now TGS is seen as the place for japanese reveals, even when E3 used to encompass it all.

Nintendo also have this policy of making game announcements for the coming few months or year while other companies announce games and year after year you see them at E3 again and again.

I think for me personally, E3 could have been tops with these announcements:

1. Endless Ocean 2

2. Elebits 2

3. Red Steel 2

3. Animal Crossing Wii

I just watched a bunch of those Banjo movies, and my interest in that game is starting to diminish. When it was first announced, the whole build-your-own-vehicles concept sounded interesting and fun, but the gameplay--at least in those vids--looks downright boring.