Mario has become a cultural hit and is enjoying a second Renaissance. The games are quality and well put together for their genre. Even if their are games out there that are just as great, they haven had the franchised shelf life Mario has had.

"Sucks that nobody buys anything that doesn't have the word Mario in it.---Ninty should just include Mario in all first and 3rd party games...like DeadSpace: Mario Extraction...would sell like hot cakes. Or MadMarioWorld. Or Mariokami. Or Muramario. or Mario's Monster Hunter. or Red Mario Steel 2...probably get my point."

Why do people continue to ignore Just Dance like it doesn't exist? It's at nearly 4 million units now, and yet people continue to try to claim that "third parties can't sell on Wii."

Besides, Monster Hunter was extremely successful in Japan, and it did pretty well here too for a Monster Hunter game.

Don't forget Wipeout: The Game. That one is in the Top 20.

People buy plenty of 3rd party games, but not in numbers high enough to chart the top 20 every month. Many games will sell consistently in the 20-50k mark each month for a year or more. So at 50k a month for a year you have a total of 600k units sold which is what most AAA games do in their first month just before they drop off the charts for good.

@Mike Siciliano
Theres a couple of reasonable 3rd party sellers on wii, though 4million is what MW2 sold first day?
But its obvious if games come out on the wii as well as the HD consoles the wii ones typically sell a fraction
perfect example above
madden xbox360 920k
madden ps3 893k

madden wii (much less than 100k)
Even the ps2 version bet it for crying out loud :)

@ zed zeek
and how many games sell what MW2 sold on the first day? Don't use the only example of such game as a comparison to Wii games, specially when it is widely known that the effort put on Wii games is far below the effort put on AAA games for the other consoles.

Regarding Madden sales, you don't see many advertisement for it, do you? You see it on PS3 or X360, but they barely show the Wii version. And you can say that the public of these two platforms is willing to fork $60 for an updated version of a game released a year ago, but I believe Wii consumers are more self-conscious.

Madden Wii doesn't sell for a simple reason. It stinks!*

I'm very surprised that Nintendo has never courted any sports game rivals, like Sega did with Visual Concepts. EA's absense has left a rather large void to be filled. The trick is that the Wii market is very hostile to sequels, especially the incremental, 95% unchanged annual sequels. Tiger Woods is a great example of this.

And, once again, I hope Just Dance shows everyone how it's done, when JD2 arrives next month. That game is going to be a monster success.

(*btw, can't they bring back "The Critic?"

troll

"@Mike Siciliano
Theres a couple of reasonable 3rd party sellers on wii, though 4million is what MW2 sold first day?"

I have to question why you would cite Modern Warfare 2 numbers. I'm glad that other people questioned this as well. If you're trying to insinuate that Just Dance isn't successful, you're wrong. I believe it is now the most successful third-party game on the system. More so than even Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games.

"But its obvious if games come out on the wii as well as the HD consoles the wii ones typically sell a fraction
perfect example above
madden xbox360 920k
madden ps3 893k

madden wii (much less than 100k)
Even the ps2 version bet it for crying out loud :)"

This is not always true. Tiger Woods 10, for example, sold more on the Wii than it did on either the Xbox 360 or PS3. Perhaps people saw a value in motion controls for that game?

I think Daniel took the words right out of my mouth. Wii owners may not be that accepting of incremental upgrades to franchises (especially sports franchises). I know if I wanted a golf or tennis game such as Tiger Woods or Grand Slam Tennis, I would only need one version.

@Mike Siciliano + Fábio
The reason for MW2 is as you say "just dance" is the most successful 3rd party game for the wii (+ it perhaps is) I just cited the most successful 3rd party game for the ps360. Thus I made a apples to apples comparison

When you look at the number of consoles sold publishers should be raking in the cash with the wii.
But they're not, want proof?
see activision / EA etc financial reports

Madden Wii should be 0.0k. EA burned that bridge and bombed the ashes.

On the subject of EA burning their bridges, what does everyone think of the NBA Jam situation? Does it still have blockbuster potential, or did EA completely destroy Jam with their little no-wifi-vs-free-download stunt?

One of the larger themes of this console generation is the sheer business incompetence on the part of software publishers. Most of the suits have no clue what the hell they are doing, and there's isn't much of a plan beyond gouging every last nickel from gamers (DLC, online services, collectibles, etc).

I completely agree that third parties should be raking in the cash on the Wii. Maybe they should get off their butts and actually make a game that's worth playing.

So you have MW2 with a combined PS3 and 360 sales of 4 million, so average of 2 million a console.

According to VG Chartz, Just Dance has sold 1,760,260 since launch. While that is not much compared to MW2's total sales (roughly 12 million combined) it is still what most would consider a successful game.

Call of Mario's Duty.... Now there's a billion seller...... :)

Ephraim, at first blush I though you were woefully underrepresenting MW2's sales. A quick check of VGChartz reveals that NA sales of MW2 on the XBOX 360 alone are almost 8 million, with an additional 4.5 million for the PS3, so average 6 million a console, in NA alone. Total they are at approximately 20 million combined, so 10 million per console.

Looks like we won't be seeing Crackdown3.

It's August 2010 and the PS2 is still getting games in the top 20. You can either say the PS2 is impressive or that the next gen systems are lacking. (I think it is a little of both.)

I still want a PS2! (here consoles are taxed 273%, so my last one was a clone of Famicon, and it was donated to me...)

I lived in with some people, and we had in the house a PS3, one Wii, one 360, and 3 PS2... And the PS2 were the most popular consoles, easily... We would spend hours every day on them :) I still have my 2 PS2 controllers! (and I never owned the console itself...)