Nintendo: third party sales to improve

Ever get the feeling that it’s only Nintendo who’s really reaping all the rewards when publishing titles for its new gaming platforms? Well, you’re not alone. Many have expressed that third-party titles don’t come close to the sales of first party titles on the Nintendo Wii – at least not like on the Nintendo DS. Speculations ran rampant that publishers are likely to take a hint and leave the platform for good. But Nintendo doesn’t see it that way in the future. More at the full story.

Though everyone sees that third-party developers and publishers aren’t doing all well on the Nintendo Wii, it doesn’t look that way in Nintendo Company Ltd.’s eyes. The Japanese gaming giant says that the whole feeling is setting in because third-parties are still learning to flex their Wii development muscles, while Nintendo has had early experience with the machine to make more appealing games. An official statement from Nintendo:

Our software sales percentage is currently high because our internal teams teams know the Wii’s special characteristics best, and they started development quite a bit before the Wii’s release.

The company’s internal development had software teams work in collaboration with hardware teams who worked on the Nintendo Wii. In short, Nintendo had an early advantage, while third-party publishers had to start from scratch.

“However, we believe that eventually [the quality of third-party development] will change,” said Nintendo.

The company observed that third-party developers who started out on the Nintendo DS also didn’t quite make games on par with the market’s tastes. But soon after, the game industry adjusted, and some DS third party games are slowly improving in sales and market share. The company expects that such a trend will also develop on the Nintendo Wii development side.