Is that his one and only example? I'm sure the fact that previous Madden efforts on the Wii have been mailed in and generally unsatisfactory to consumers had NOTHING to do with this one particular case. EA, through their admittedly lackluster Wii support, already sent the message to anyone who walked out with a copy of Wii Madden "we don't take this platform seriously." I wonder of Creutz is a big Great White fan. "Once Bitten Twice Shy" indeed. Ask Activision or Lucasarts how inhospitable the Wii is to them!

Agreed, my guess is, if you look at the number of titles published for the Wii, it's much higher than the number of titles for XBox360, PS3 or PS2 today, so in my opinion games for these 3 consoles will sell indiviually better, but that's only a guess.
What I am sure of is that even in the USA casual gamers won't buy a Madden NFL Title, a series they know exists for several decades now and stands for a highly complex sport simulation.

"Is that his one and only example?"

For concluding that the Wii _continues_ to be inhospitable? Sure, although I'd take it more as a reminder than an example: "hey look, not even Madden can prove it wrong." Can you find any counterexample in Wii's NPDs history?

Maybe because the Wii doesn't exactly appeal to your average frat-boy crowd, like Xbox.

Capcom does pretty good for themselves on the Wii also, Steve.

I'd sooner guess that it doesn't have to be the fault of the platform being "inhospitable", but rather it's a different target demographic. Unlike the hardcore, casual gamers simply aren't going to purchase yearly updates to the same game. I'd expect this to be doubly true if previous installments weren't of top quality.

Odd, they say that it is inhospitable but it comes in at number 9 this year while last year it came in at 11. The 08 madden had first week sales of 57,247 this years is at 115.8K... So EA is complaining about selling 60,000 more units this year at $50 a pop.... Don't know about you but 3 million doesn't sound THAT inhospitable...

This is to Mr. Peter Moore, if you know the people that purchase Madden on Wii are primary HARDCORE GAMERS, yes HARDCORE GAMERS. I was buy Madden 07 for Wii but in the new 08 game I'm frustrated becose the game not have the FEATURES along the Xbox360 and PS3 version, that is why I DON'T purchase the game. If you put a Madden game with the SAME GRAPHICS, BETTER GAMEPLAY and ALL THE FEATURES than other console versions, (include ONLINE MODE). You can see HOW THE MONEY FLOODS!!
And the Wii Madden 09 will be the BEST SALES VERSION!!

To the first Anonymous, Guitar Hero III sold more copies (and appeared more times in the top 10 NPD) in its Wii version than in all others.

To the first anonymous: it's the other way around. It's actually hard to find hard numbers that prove the Wii is inhospitable to third-party publishers. For example, for the past several months, the number of third-party games sold on the Wii per month has been around or even higher than the total number of games sold on either Xbox 360 or PS3. No More Heroes is the best-selling Suda 51 game ever. Guitar Hero III sold better on Wii than the PS3 or Xbox 360. Boom Blox has sold over 400,000 copies (game site reports focused on its weak opening but did not notice that sales were steady for many weeks afterward). Carnival Games' ROI is astronomical.

Regarding Mr. Creutz's statement about the Wii's dev environment: this is coming from the same analyst who told Forbes that no game in the PC market would ever sell as well as GTA IV, even though some simple research would show that he was wrong. (GTA IV sold best on Xbox 360, with 3.4 million units sold. There are 14 PC games that have sold more than that. GTA IV sold a total of 6+ million units, and 6 PC games have sold more than that.)

He also told Forbes that only a handful of PC games ever sell over 3 million units. Since 1999, there have been 24 PC games that have sold that well worldwide. In the same time period, only 48 console games --across all platforms combined!-- have sold that well.

If he's that wildly speculative on the state of PC gaming despite clear evidence disputing his claims, how can I trust him on the state of Wii gaming without any hard numbers to back him up? Mr. Creutz, give me your numbers and I'll believe you. Yes, your numbers on Madden are true, but using your method of calculation, I find that 3rd-week sales on the Xbox 360 have dropped to 13% of 1st-week sales and 12% on the PS3, while 3rd-week sales on the Wii have dropped to 26% of 1st-week sales, so the Wii version seems to be trending toward long-term constant sales, just like many other third-party games on the Wii that had mediocre opening-week sales but profitable overall sales.

Or maybe, Mr. Creutz, you should qualify your statement. It should be something like this:

"The Wii market is inhospitable to third-party publishers who expect traditionally large short-term returns, since the market trends clearly indicate that, unlike other platforms, total unit sales numbers on the Wii are not necessarily dependent on first-week sales."

I'm confused as to why industry news sites like Gamasutra, GI.biz and Next-Gen exercise such little editorial quality control with regard to 'analyst' stories. This site was much better before it started competing with blogs for hits from forum goers to fuel their endless flame wars.

I see nothing in this analysis that is new or helpful to developers or publishers, who will draw their own conclusions.

My conclusion? Simple: A 10 year old who loved Wii Sports in '06 is a 12 year old already, and will be a teen next year, and they'll likely want a Madden just the same as teens wanted Maddens ten years ago. Not a (seemingly) dumbed down family friendly one.

I will tell you the key to third-parties have huge sucess on Wii:
If they launch the best franchises AAA titles that have sucess on Xbox360 and Ps3. For example GTAIV, Halo3, COD4, GOW, Crisis RE5 going to Wii what Happening?. These games OVERTAKE THE NINTENDO FIRST PARTY GAMES and Nintendo games no more reach again the same sucess!! Why? Becose all GAMERS KNOWS THAT ARE GOOD QUALITY GAMES, every gamer today search for game info and looking for picks, videos and reviews to purchase a game. If the game has poor graphics, poor gameplay and bad review score, simply he discard the game. This is the only way to change the BAD PERCEPTION WII OWNERS HAVE FOR THIRD PARTY GAMES, is a shame that with the LASTEST GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGIES today the third-parties not push the Wii graphics to the limits, not invest seriously on Wii, if about developer cost? if put more effort? or simply they don't want go retro? (Wii tech is old) .For me if I will pay $10 more for a quality Wii game I will pay, QUALITY OVER QUANTITY, If you develop a game in a inferior hardware than others is a good thing, becose is a good challenge try to mach the same level of a game from a superior hardware in a limited hardware, you learn more and makes you an expert programer, I think and I sure that the Wii can mach the Xbox360 graphics, but with great develop effort and using the lastest tech just like the "Procedual Tech" for example. The third-parties knows this, but why they not develop this games for Wii, they think that if they release this games they not match the same quality. Wrong is they put effort and use the lastest technologies they can do it.

Aaron Eastburn,
EA Isn't complaining about anything. Doug Creutz is an analyst at Cowen Group. I know that EA Bashing has become quite the sport these days (maybe EA Sports should make a game for that), but if you take your specs off Bias-Vision, you might have noticed that noone at EA was quoted as claiming the Wii is Inhospitable.

I want to see a Third-Party Wii game developed 100% using the "Procedural Technology".
Will be Amazing!!

Whoa there anonymous at 2:23! Yes I did mention EA was complaining and it was my mistake. However, the last two paragraphs are written so that there is no separation in continuity between the two people who are quoted. Generally when a piece like this is written you SHOULD begin the second paragraph with something like "Even though EA sports is making this extra effort (analyst) Creutz feels...". That would define the boundary between the two people versus mentioning the president of EA sports, printing a quote that begins with "we", and THEN putting Cruetz' name at the very end of the quote. It's not EA bashing, I don't have my "specs on Bias-Vision", it was just a mistake due to how the article was written... It does seem like a lot of people like to bash on EA but that is no reason to automatically assume that is everybody's motive. I would appreciate it if you would try to point out my mistakes in a nicer way and give me a chance to explain myself.

"We continue to believe that the Wii is a relatively inhospitable platform for third-party publishers"
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The Wii isn't inhospitable to any developers. It's not the console's fault if a developer makes a complex game slated for hardcore gamers, and releases it for the console that has won the simpler casual audience. If you make a very simple block-dropper Meteos kind of game, release it on Nintendo DS and XBox360, is it suddenly Microsoft's fault that the housewives, younger children, and old blokes didn't support strong sales for the XBox360? Is Microsoft being 'Inhospitable' to Third-Party publishers of these brightly-colored puzzle games?

Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock is the perfect example of how inaccurate this analysis is. The game's available for all platforms. But according to NPD reports throughout summer, the Wii version outsold all other consoles. Why isn't Activision calling Sony 'Inhospitable' to developers?

This has JACK to do with Nintendo. Nintendo did nothing wrong by developing a simple budget console that oh just so happened to demolish everybody else in the console race. No, weak software sales is generally not to be pinned on the hardware, especially in this case.

Nintendo inhospitable to developers? Come on. One can say Nintendo lacks a strong demographic for Madden-type games involving a lot of hardcore administrative management. If Madden was a cartoon-ish sports brawler with bold hues and one-button simple party gameplay, Wii sales would be in the stratosphere.

The problem with this article is that it uses Madden as it's base.

Look, with Madden, we have been playing what is at it's core the same game for 20 years. We keep going back to it because it is what we want.

If someone wants to bring out a realistic football game for Wii created from the ground up, that would be fantastic, but I, and I think a lot of other hardcore gamers and Wii fans (all 3 of us who are both) even see that in order to get the game we actually want to play, we need to purchase one of the other versions.

This was EA's fault. They purposely separated out the Wii audience and created a whole different direction for their games on the system. The problem is, they are one of the legacy giants. Consumers know what they get from them and that's what they want. Us Wii fans wanted the same Madden as the XBox and PS owners. It didn't need to be quite as pretty, I understand hardware limitations, but you can't tell me you couldn't get the same game logic in there.

If Madden '09 for Wii had been essentially the same game, with Wii style controls and tweaked timing for the use of such controls it would have sold as well, if not better, than the others.