Industry analyst Michael Pachter has said that Nintendo’s first party titles accounted for 47 per cent of dollar sales on Wii in 2009.
“Running through the NPD results for 2009 (U.S. only in retail dollars), it looks like Nintendo first party Wii titles sold 27.5 million units for a total of $1.53 billion at retail. In contrast, overall Wii software sales were 72.4 million units and $3.23 billion,” Pachter said on gaming forum NeoGAF (via GamerInvestments).
“I think that this illustrates an obvious point: Nintendo first party titles dominate on the Wii.”
He explained that Nintendo captured 38 per cent of unit sales and 47 per cent of dollar sales, leaving the rest for third parties and that the average Nintendo first party Wii title sold for $55.63, while the average third party title sold for $37.85. “Nintendo first party titles captured the top six positions, nine of the top ten, and 15 of the top 21.”
“Recently, we've seen comments from third parties (Capcom, EA and Ubisoft) expressing frustration over an inability to generate big sales on the Wii. Similarly, we've seen comments from Nintendo about how quality and marketing is the key to success on the Wii.
“I found it fascinating that the highest ranked Guitar Hero title on the Wii in 2009 was GH World Tour at #30. I also found it fascinating that games like Just Dance, Cabela's Big Game Hunter, Deal or No Deal, The Biggest Loser and Jillian Michaels 2009 all finished ahead of the highest ranked GH game.”
Pachter says that the Wii audience is far more casual and harder to reach than the PS3 or 360 audiences and they buy brand name software (with Wii or Mario in the title, or with a TV/product tie-in). “The only titles that don't fit this are Deca Sports and Game Party,” he adds. “The average selling price of third party titles says a lot, coming in almost $7 below the average for all Wii titles, and almost $18 below first party titles. There were a lot of units sold with the word ‘party’ in the title at $20 or less."