The GameSpot article below lists several numbers and figures demonstrating that Nintendo’s success in software sales in April, evident by the recent NPD report, came at the expense of third party software sales. It is made clear that last generation saw third parties enjoying plentiful sales on the PlayStation 2 due to little competition from Sony titles and Nintendo software not reaching a large enough market on the GameCube. Their market share will drop significantly as companies like Nintendo and Microsoft keep pumping out quality first party titles like they’re doing.
I have a few issues with this complaint/dire scenario. Nintendo’s software is almost the only thing pushing sales for the console right now. In fact, everything I’m hearing from friends, family, even random people walking behind me on the sidewalk suggests that the one piece of software selling the Wii the most isn’t even sold separately on the shelves…it’s bundled in! Fact is, Nintendo’s pulling out the big guns every few weeks in order to sell the system. If third parties pumped out a few more quality titles, Nintendo wouldn’t have to work as hard (not that they wouldn’t, I’m just saying). Either way, more systems sold means a larger install base for those third parties to appeal to with their future titles. Everyone wins in the long run.
Second, maybe if more third party games were, you know, good, maybe we’d be buying more of them. There’s a reason third parties have to compete with Nintendo on a software level when dealing on a Nintendo platform, and less so with Sony on a Sony platform. Yeah, that’s right, I said it.
