Nintendo: 76 Wii games have sold in excess of 1m copies
UPDATE: DSi XL gets March release date in US; Mario Galaxy 2 launching in May
Nintendo has said that 76 Wii titles have now sold in excess of 1 million copies - 22 of which are first-party developed games and 54 of which were made by third-parties.
And 108 DS titles have also reached the milestone, with 45 first-party and 63 third-party games selling over a million worldwide, according to Dan Adelman, Nintendo's head of business development, speaking at the company's Media Summit in San Francisco yesterday.
In terms of the online libraries for Nintendo systems, Virtual Console now has 347 titles, WiiWare has 189, and DSiWare 127, reports VG247.
The same press event also bore news of the US release dates for the DSi XL and Nintendo's core releases for the first half of 2010.
The new larger-screened DSi will be released in North America on March 28, Nintendo confirmed, at a retail price of $189.99 (£124).
Like in Japan, the console will come with some pre-loaded software - in the the case of the US launch that will be Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters, Brain Age Express: Math and Photo Clock, the DSi browser and Flipnote Studio applications.
Game announcements included the awaited release date for Super Mario Galaxy 2, which was pinned for May 23 in the US, reported Gamasutra.
Team Ninja's Metroid: Other M was dated for June 27, Capcom's Monster Hunter Tri for April 20 and Treasure's Sin and Punishment: Star Successor for June 7.
Nintendo also confirmed it would publish Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies in North America this summer.
UPDATE: Nintendo Europe has announced that Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be released in the UK on June 11, Monster Hunter Tri April 23, Sin & Punishment 2 May 7, and Metroid: Other M a third quarter release.
Aaaaand, end sarcasm.
It goes like this:
2001 - Nintendo released GC with minimal 3rd party support.
2001 - 2006 - 3rd party support faltered more due low GC sales (just 21 million units - Even PS3 just passed that mark).
2006 - Analysts predicted catastrophic failure for Wii as noted by these projections.
Strategy Analytics [Jul-05] (Worldwide Through 2012)
Sony PS3 - 121.8 million (61%)
Xbox 360 - 58.8 million (30%)
Nintendo Wii - 18 million (9%)
Total - 198.6 million
Kagan Research (U.S. Through 2010)
Sony PS3 - 56.5%
Xbox 360 - 28.5%
Nintendo Wii - 15%
Piper Jaffray (U.S. Through 2008)
Xbox 360 - 19.6 million (48.3%)
Sony PS3 - 15.5 million (38.2%)
Nintendo Wii - 5.5 million (13.5%)
Total - 40.6 million
Citigroup (U.S. Through 2008) Didn't even list Wii
Xbox 360 - 19.8 million
Sony PS3 - 11.0 million
UBS [Jan-06] (U.S. Through 2009)
Sony PS3 - 23 million (43%)
Xbox 360 - 20 million (38%)
Nintendo Wii - 10 million (19%)
Total - 53 million
Friedman Billings Ramsey (U.S. Through 2010)
Xbox 360 - 24.6 million (40.7%)
Sony PS3 - 23.3 million (38.6%)
Nintendo Wii - 12.5 million (20.7%)
Total - 60.4 million
In-Stat (Worldwide Through 2010)
Sony PS3 - 50%
Xbox 360 - 28.6%
Nintendo Wii - 21.2%
Wedbush Morgan Securities (U.S. and Europe Through 2010)
Sony PS3 - 45%
Xbox 360 - 35%
Nintendo Wii - 20%
Merrill Lynch (Worldwide Through 2008)
Xbox 360 - 47%
Sony PS3 - 33%
Nintendo Wii - 20%
IDG (U.S. Through 2008)
Xbox 360 - 15.5 million (43.3%)
Sony PS3 - 13.5 million (37.7%)
Nintendo Wii - 6.8 million (19.0%)
Total - 35.8 million
P.J. McNealy (Worldwide Through 2007)
Xbox 360 - 21 to 23 million
Sony PS3 - 13 to 16 million
Nintendo Wii - 12 to 14 million
Yankee Group (North America Through 2011)
Sony PS3 - 30 million (44%)
Xbox 360 - 27 million (40%)
Nintendo Wii - 11 million (16%)
Total - 68 million
Nomura Securities (Worldwide Through 2011)
Sony PS3 - 71 million
Nintendo Wii - 40 million
Enterbrain / Famitsu (Worldwide Through 2009)
Sony PS3 - 34 million (39.1%)
Xbox 360 - 28 million (32.2%)
Nintendo Wii - 25 million (28.7%)
Total - 87 million
IDG (North America Through 2010)
Xbox 360 - 23.9 million (39.2%)
Sony PS3 - 23.5 million (38.5%)
Nintendo Wii - 13.6 million (22.3%)
Total - 61 million
Merrill Lynch (Worldwide Through March 2011)
Xbox 360 - 39%
Sony PS3 - 34%
Nintendo Wii - 27%
Strategy Analytics [Nov-06] (Worldwide Through 2012)
Sony PS3 - 121.8 million (59.47%)
Xbox 360 - 59.7 million (29.15%)
Nintendo Wii - 23.3 million (11.38%)
Total - 204.8 million
SFG Research (North America Through 2010)
Xbox 360 - 29.4 million (43.8%)
Sony PS3 - 24.2 million (36.1%)
Nintendo Wii - 13.5 million (20.1%)
Total - 67.1 million
SFG Research (Worldwide Through 2010)
Sony PS3 - 62 million (46.6%)
Xbox 360 - 46 million (34.6%)
Nintendo Wii - 25 million (18.8%)
Total - 133 million
Screen Digest (U.S. Through 2010)
Xbox 360 - 42%
Sony PS3 - 38%
Nintendo Wii - 20%
Screen Digest (Japan Through 2010)
Sony PS3 - 64%
Nintendo Wii - 25%
Xbox 360 - 11%
UBS [May-07] (U.S. Through 2010)
Xbox 360 - 22 million (35.5%)
Sony PS3 - 21 million (33.9%)
Nintendo Wii - 19 million (30.6%)
Total - 62 million
2006 - Publishers/developers allocated their resources for the first several years of the 7th generation based on these and more sales projections.
2007 - Publishers/developers reacted as quickly as possible to latch onto the Wii bandwagon but with no money allocated for development they were practically forced to release PS2 ports, mini-game compilations, exceedingly low budget shelf fodder, etc...
2008 - Market is flooded with more product that the install base can properly consume. Overall combined sales are great but individual game sales suffer due to saturation of product.
2009 - Publishers/developers try passing their low budget offers for Wii by glossing them over with "core" styles but either fail to market them, put them on rails, or make them too niche for good sales.
2010 - Publishers stand confused why their games can't sell like Nitnendo.
It's simple though. If publishers/developers do not put in a Nintendo-like effort, they have no grounds to cry over not getting Nintendo-like sales. Combine that with inundating the market with far more product than can be consumed and you have a scenario that no one wants to take the blame for.
Let's consider a GameStop Wii shelving section for a moment. If publishers release 100 games for the 4th quarter (like they have before), where exactly do they expect GameStop to keep them all and how long do they expect them to remain on the shelf? Do many of them even prod retailer to keep their product up for more than a single week anyway? If you stock is being taken down because you have another of your own titles coming in the following week....good going, you just killed your own sales.
And of course the gamers know this. Which is why so many of them have given up on Wii. I take that back, they haven't given up on Wii, they've given up on the ability of publishers/developers to get it right.
The solution? Sadly, we're over 3 years too late to fix it, but narrow your focus. Reduce the volume of product you publish and make higher quality content. And for the love of God, market the damn things. It's like you send your games out to die.
And by the way, don't help create a mess of a market and then demand that Nintendo fix it for you without owning up to your end of the problem.
Jack, I hope I answered your question. /end rant.
The last year or so has been difficult for any 'core'-gamers who own a Wii since the high-quality product has been lacking or simply not provided. Sadly, this is because Nintendo had very few titles to release. With Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M and hopefully a new Zelda on the way, this should lead to a stronger software line up for 2010. It's just a bit of a joke that, once again, a strong Wii line-up relies so heavily on Nintendo.
On that note: The Mario Galaxy 2 trailer is fantastic. The sort of trailer that puts a smile on your face and makes you want to play the previous release all over again.
That was all in 2006! It's amazing how these numbers, these FACTS, are so easily forgotten (ignored?) a mere 4 years after the fact. Now we have the same analysts prancing about making MORE predictions. Hell, Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter, the game journalist quote machine himself, has his own GameTrailers TV show! I think it's a comedy, I'm not sure.
Now, I don't know if any gamer worth their salt's necessarily given up on the Wii. Look at those sales! Look at those evergreen titles, staying in the top 10 for literally years on end! That said, I do agree with you that many have accepted that no third party developer or publisher will truly figure the system out anytime soon.
"And by the way, don't help create a mess of a market and then demand that Nintendo fix it for you without owning up to your end of the problem."
As to your quoted point in my comment here, I'd say that's pretty well summed up. Nothing more to add, really, beyond this: The trouble is a lot of those developers and publishers are no longer around to complain, having been let go, sadly, in 2009.
Publishers like EA are just making crap ports and budget games for the Wii and then claimed that they made an effort. Seriously, nothing really good came out of EA for the Wii so far, not even "Dead Space: Extraction". And really I can't think of a game that actually is good on Wii from EA.
I think Ubisoft is one of the fews that actually tried hard and in some way got a better return - the "Raving Rabbids" franchise, "Just Dance" etc. I'm interested to see how the specially built "Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sand" will look like. Wii is not a machine just for ports and it seems that a lot of those shovelware companies still haven't realised that.
Sega is a different story as they build games for the Wii with different target audience in mind and thus they scored different markets with "Mario & Sonic at Olympics" and "House of the Dead: Overkilled".
At the end of the day, the bus stops with the publishers / developers not the console provider. If the games don't resonate with gamers, they just don't. People who play Wii games expect different things from PS3 / 360 even when they own both or all consoles. Take a look at Nintendo's approach to its own games, they adopt different apporaches to gameplay although a lot of times the games are in budget graphics. People on Wii are looking for a different experience.
So publishers / developers, you have no one to blame but yourself. Do a bit more market research and get your act together instead of finger pointing.
Thankfully for gaming as an industry, their silence, combined with Nintendo's unparalleled success this generation, says more than enough, and I am optimistic once again.