Game publishers buffeted by Nintendo's big April

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted May 18, 2007 10:53 am PT

The success of the first-party-oriented Wii and DS cut into third parties' profits; EA, THQ, Take-Two hard hit.

Yesterday, industry research firm NPD Funworld released its US sales figures for the April 2007 reporting period. While hardware sales increased, overall non-PC software sales were flat, slipping 1 percent. However, console software fell a sharp 20 percent, while handheld software rose 61 percent on strong sales of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

In the wake of the report, Wall Street industry analysts staged their traditional postgame show. They were unanimous in their opinion that the success of the Wii and DS, which rely primarily on first-party games, has cut into the bottom line of third-party publishers. In April, roughly 63 percent of all Wii games and 79 percent of all DS games sold were made in-house at Nintendo.

"The shift in interest to Nintendo products has clearly stolen share from third-party games across all platforms," said Pacific Crest's Evan Wilson."This has had the greatest effect on Electronic Arts due to its size." Indeed, EA's sales slid 44.2 percent during the month to just $37.9 million, following the lackluster performance of Tiger Woods PGA Tour for the Wii (53,000 units) and Medal of Honor: Vanguard for the PlayStation 2 and Wii (56,000 units overall).

Two of EA's archrivals also had a bumpy April. Take-Two Interactive saw its monthly sales plummet 54.5 percent to $19.8 million, despite MLB 2K7 selling a decent 177,000 units. THQ, which had no major releases during the month, suffered a less drastic decline, falling 27.6 percent to 13.4 million--significantly below analyst expectations.

Besides being a short-term issue, the success of first-party games could pose long-term problems for third parties. "A key to the successes of many publishers during the last console cycle was market share gains at the expense of first-party publishers," UBS analyst Benjamin A. Schachter pointed out. "We are concerned that this cycle may revert somewhat back to greater share gains for the first-party players, particularly as Nintendo rebounds and Microsoft focuses on and improves its AAA titles."

Microsoft Game Studios' Gears of War has been an ongoing success story since its release last November, and the company has two more heavyweight Xbox 360 exclusives--Halo 3 and Mass Effect--slated to ship later this year. The most popular game on the PlayStation 3 to date has also been a first-party title, Resistance: Fall of Man.

357 Comments

  • Nuirako

    Posted Jun 6, 2007 8:28 pm PT

    I think Nintendo's strategy: amazing game play, digestible graphics and good controls is the seller. Without the gameplay, the graphics do nothing they are just their for visuals. What good is a game with out the gameplay, yes that would not make it a game my friends so these third party peoples should get the big N formula and put it to good use on the Wii or nintendo will start making third party games for other consoles and they will get the cash.

  • DaFrop

    Posted Jun 5, 2007 6:57 pm PT

    Poor Sony! They keep going lower and lower

  • brosim1104

    Posted Jun 4, 2007 5:41 am PT

    I heard that EA bought a new studio only to develop for Ninty... Also, i heard that they change the policy about Wii... Nintendo has the power to move the greatest publisher as ''she'' wants!!! lol

  • theKSMM

    Posted Jun 3, 2007 10:13 pm PT

    In the previous generation, third-party publishers didn't make games from the GameCube because it didn't have enough market share.

    This generation, the Wii is selling like hotcakes, and yet no third-party publisher can turn that into significant sales. It's especially difficult when Mario and company are like bullies on the playground hogging up all the good rides.

    It would be interesting to see Nintendo losing third-party support in this generation because their own games are selling too well.

  • living_wmd_888

    Posted May 30, 2007 3:08 pm PT

    Part of the reason why Nintendo is perceived to have weaker third-part support than its competition is because Nintendo's in-house stuff overpowers almost everything else. It's extremely difficult to compete directly with Nintendo. Frankly, I'm only interested in a very few third parties myself (Square Enix, Konami, Capcom, Namco, etc.). EA simply doesn't make anything I really care about, ditto with so many other companies.

    Third party games do sell on Nintendo systems - iIF THE DEVELOPERS ARE WILLING TO PUT IN THE TIME AND EFFORT. Look at Resident Evil 4. Look at Final Fantasy VI.

  • jedimas64

    Posted May 30, 2007 11:15 am PT

    smudgexxx i think its ea's own fault. they know the wii is supposed to be made for 5 year old kids but they put ther sports games out that are made for older kids. in the end ea cant make kiddy games. if they continue to do this then they are going to drop badly

    the wii isnt made for kids, it is made with families in mind, they want it to be used by everyone in the family, however, nintendo does have the least amount of adult content, but as history has proven, blood and violence does not make a game

  • smudgexxx

    Posted May 28, 2007 4:39 pm PT

    i think its ea's own fault. they know the wii is supposed to be made for 5 year old kids but they put ther sports games out that are made for older kids. in the end ea cant make kiddy games. if they continue to do this then they are going to drop badly

  • A7Xfan

    Posted May 25, 2007 11:11 am PT

    DOES IT NOT MAKE SENSE TO THESE PUBLISHERS?
    If you release a great game on Wii you will get great sales, you've gotta build a fan base which they obviously don't have due to their lack of interest in trying.develop for Nintendo.
    YOU GET WHAT YOU PUT IN. Who's made a great game on Wii so far other than Nintendo? (Trauma Center and Madden, and Atlus games never sell too great so there you go with Trauma Center and Madden was a very successful title....) Rayman sold well too as did Monkey Ball... This gets me so mad they have the nerve to blame Nintendo for their own bad decisions.

    On a final note it's time to reconsider which games will 'make it' there's specifically titles that will and old tired styles that won't. Shooters of lesser quality (basically everything on WIi save for Elebits which isn't a real shooter, haven't been great). They better think this out well and do it fast before the smaller companies rise up and dominate.

  • brosim1104

    Posted May 23, 2007 8:16 pm PT

    So... Nintendo IS going good. I'm so happy. Well done. I hope things will get better for the rest so we all can enjoy great games from the biggests (best(??)) Publishers/developers...

  • Tombackman_5

    Posted May 23, 2007 11:01 am PT

    EA needs to just start making good games again. C&C3 is a step in the right direction.

  • smoothn00dle

    Posted May 23, 2007 2:45 am PT

    3rd parties have to learn that graphic is not working in Nintendo's world. Imagine Splinter Cell port on DS with 2D graphic, would U buy it? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It is GAMEPLAY. Baby! This is clearly not EA, Activision and Ubisoft's strength. Can they make games like Mario, Phoneix Wrighter and Brain training game better than Big-N.. just look at the SNES era..

  • Pokedude1013

    Posted May 22, 2007 7:27 pm PT

    Poor EA, lol, I just hope they stay above the water to make more Battlefield games. Those rock,
    I think they should just pull out of the consoles, they aren't making that many good games there. Well, maybe a few.
    But if all they do is transfer games from system to system, or make more bad sports games, then I think they do deserve to doop, even if that means losing my precious Battlefield

  • katow-jo91

    Posted May 22, 2007 1:45 pm PT

    Quite frankly I thought they did a pretty lousy job with Tiger Woods. I rented it for Wii (thank goodness I didn't buy it) and it didn't register my swings properly which caused me to shank the ball pretty much every time. I also wasn't crazy with Madden although I think that turned out better than Tiger Woods.

  • porphyrous

    Posted May 22, 2007 12:19 pm PT

    To be fair, EA has tried. When EA brought Madden NFL 07 to the Wii, they invested a lot of time in the control scheme. They did it right. Similar with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07. Problem with Tiger was the graphics were so obviously skimped on that it turned people off, and it came out 6 months before the scheduled release date of Tiger 08 (which I think is really what has hurt its sales). But most of the rest of the poorly reviewed games on GameSpot have had lousy Wii controls and lazy graphics. They deserve to lose.

    I don't hate EA. Some of the company does try, and they seem to be really trying to make things work on the Wii. Bringing Madden to the Wii, with its motion controls, is the best thing to happen to Madden in the last 5 years. And The Godfather looks pretty good, another EA title. I'm reserving judgment on EA Sports on the Wii until Madden 08 and Tiger 08 and hopefully some of the others. I'm not all that familiar with THQ, but I know Take Two, the *!&%&$*! who own the exclusive Major League Baseball license. I'm hoping The Bigs isn't awful (mostly because the development team has most of the EA MVP dev team), but I'm prepared for it to.

    It's not that the Wii doesn't need 1st person shooters (Elebits was pretty good) or sports sims (Madden 07 was pretty good), it's just that as Nintendo users, we have pretty lofty quality expectations that most 3rd party folks aren't meeting.

    David V

  • Vegeta-sama

    Posted May 21, 2007 8:07 pm PT

    Rayman Raving Rabbits was a PS2 game as well... it's not a bad idea to port games if they are done right. Microsoft seems to be the best place for 3rd part developers... Ubisoft and Capcom have certainlly found tons of success on the console... and Nintendo is Nintendo... people buy the system for Nintendo's games... and little else. I don't understand how everyone keeps going back every time to get their butt's pounded into the ground by Nintendo on their consoles. How many Madden games sold on the Wii? Now how many Zelda games sold or any of the other games buy Nintendo?

  • godzillavskong

    Posted May 21, 2007 7:59 pm PT

    It seems as if 1st party developers are trying hard to push the console and take advantage of the hardware.Some 3rd party developers just decide to add a few features and port it.Some games just aren't made to be ported over.Rayman Rabbid Rabbits( I think thats what it's called) for the Wii shouldn't have been ported to the 360.It was a game that utilized the Wii with the motion sensing and mini games and is completely useless on the 360.PORTS SUCK.

  • GtheMVP

    Posted May 21, 2007 7:06 pm PT

    It's nice to see these annual games from third party publishers finally take a hit. I'm tired of minimal upgrades for full priced products that are released yearly, and certainly not worth it!

  • rebelious

    Posted May 21, 2007 6:37 pm PT

    Well 3rd parties should start being more creative with there games. They cant afford to be lazy this time around. I dont care for EA's games mostly anyway.

  • -Ronin-_basic

    Posted May 21, 2007 4:40 pm PT

    Well, if 3rd parties are bitter about losing business to first parties, maybe they could take more care with their work.

    Stop porting every game to every system, then stripping out features. Put more work in to your titles, so they don't work out to be 10 hours of concentrated ass. Hell, delay a few games if you have to. If I have to wait an extra month or two for some significant improvements, I'll still buy the game.

    It's not a first party's fault that their product is more appealing than something slapped together without considering the characteristics of the console. We know everyone wants to be the first to put something out so they can claim they're breaking new ground, but when it's trash, yes... you can expect to lose money.

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