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