Sony: Third-party Wii, DS games not selling well

February 18th, 2010 Posted in DS, News, Posted by Valay, Wii

“What publishers have said is they’re not going to spend the resources on Wii… In my job, we compete against Microsoft and Nintendo, and we’re competing for resources. So when I walk into a publisher, I ask, ‘Where are you guys pushing your resources?’ In the past, it was ‘Look how hot the Wii is,’ or ‘Look how hot the DS is,’ and ‘We should put resources there.’ They did that and realized, ‘You know what, third-party product just doesn’t sell on that platform.’ So now they’re taking those resources, coming back to us and saying, ‘Sony we’re going to be able to provide you with that exclusive content,’ or ‘We’re going to put more engineers on it and figure out to maximize the Blu-ray and get more out of PS3.’ That’s what we’re seeing now. And I don’t even have to fight for their hearts and minds; I just show them the TRST data with regards to how many top 10 titles are third-party titles on the Wii, or how many top 10 titles are third-party titles on the DS. Not many. It’s not a hard story to sell, and they get that. Unless they’ve got a particular franchise that’s worked well on the Wii, you don’t see a lot of innovative new IP coming out on that platform.” – Rob Dyer, SCEA Senior Vice President of Publisher Relations

To be honest, Dyer is pretty correct. Looking at the last six months, only four third-party Wii and DS games have managed to reach the top 10 for NPD sales. However, a few games here and there – like Scribblenauts, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, and Just Dance – have managed to sell well. And in Japan, it’s troubling to see high-quality titles like Tales of Graces performing poorly. We’ve seen unique IPs from publishers in the past like Deadly Creatures and de Blob, but I wonder how things will change over the next few months.

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  1. 11 Responses to “Sony: Third-party Wii, DS games not selling well”

  2. By Radioactive Puppy on Feb 18, 2010

    Well, I think it’s because third party gaming companies want to sell games but aren’t interested in fully utilizing the hardware of the Wii or the DS- therefore, the games they make are shallow and uninteresting. Nintendo churns out innovative DS games that make use of the dual screens and touch capabilities all the time- only larger third party gaming companies actually attempt to do this, like Sega and Square Enix. However, the majority of other third party companies simply attempting to capitalize on the popularity of the DS don’t attempt this- nor the Wii for that matter. Therefore, the games either feature lame waggle or just poor design, and therefore don’t get sold. It’s more a case of laziness on third party companies’ parts.

  3. By Dannyxzero on Feb 18, 2010

    How sad sony….. you forget how much money it cost to make a ok game on your system. If people tryed to make good games on the wii and made sure the the price would stay the same for a year or so then everything would be ok ^____^_^_^__^__^__^____^__^__^__^__^__^__^____^____^__^__^___^___^__^___^__^__^_

  4. By Ryan on Feb 18, 2010

    Hahaha, well put Radioactive Puppy! I couldn’t have said it better myself :P

  5. By Captain N on Feb 18, 2010

    Well of course 3rd party games sell better on Sony platforms, that’s because most of their first party games suck :)

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  7. By Brandon Heat on Feb 19, 2010

    How sad…to see sony in these days to say these words…How can you say such a thing when you,SONY,stole the ps1 fron nintendo’s hands??And now,you turn and say that…???Is because nintendo learn fron her fault and she want to sell good tittles for sure,not waitting for 3rd party to make a good game,she wants games for sure!!!If a game is as good as a 1st party game then everyone is gona love it…

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    A nice post. Dyer is right

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